Jim Kirk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pursuedthestars) wrote2015-06-18 08:06 am
pursuedthestars) wrote2015-06-18 08:06 am
Iowa | Thursday FT
A bike, a slick and elegant model was whirring powerfully and speeding towards the soon to be departing shuttle at speeds that would probably get him ticketed if any cops had been around. Even though Jim was several feet off, he knew that bastard Pike was grinning. Knew it and didn't care for once. This was the right decision even if Pike would be smug as hell about it.
Dismounting, Jim came toward him. He carried no baggage save for unfulfilled expectations. He looked as cocky as he had that night in the bar, albeit somewhat less weather-beaten. As he strode purposefully toward Pike, a passing worker paused to glance in the direction of the parked bike.
“Nice ride.”
Without looking in the man’s direction Jim tossed him the ignition and identification card.
“Live it up.”
Reflexively catching the toss, the man gaped at him. “Hey, you kidding me…?” Jim did not even look at him. Did not look back. In the course of some very serious introspection, he had made a significant discovery.
He was tired of objects.
Halting directly in front of Pike, he regarded the captain evenly. For a moment neither man said anything. For a moment neither needed to do so. A good deal passed between them without having to be put into words. Pike eventually broke the silence.
“How did you get in here? Past security?”
The attitude was still present. “Told ’em I was your nephew. Came to say good-bye, not enough time to fill out the necessary requests, and they could check me with a retina scan. The guard-in-charge had her buddies go over my bike while she checked me out personally.” Jim grinned broadly. “Guard-in-charge was a gal. I can be very persuasive.”
“Yes,” Pike replied dryly, “I believe I saw ample evidence of that the other night.” Turning slightly, he indicated the waiting shuttle. “You’re here, that’s what matters. No time to fit you with a uniform, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all right,” Jim assured him. “I’m not real big on uniforms. They tend to get in my face.”
“Nevertheless you’ll be required to wear one. And not, if you please, over your face. Any last questions before you board?”
“You mean like, any last wishes? Just one. What’s the Academy’s policy on fraternization between cadets?”
Pike didn’t crack a smile. “You’ll find out. Just like you’ll find out the Academy’s policy on everything else.”
Jim started past him. “Won’t some poor psion-pusher get upset when I show up on board without appropriate paperwork?”
“If there’s any problem, use me as a reference,” Pike told him. “Just try not to reference me too often, okay?”
Smiling, Jim snapped off a farewell salute. Or to be more precise, flicked one finger at the captain from the general vicinity of his forehead. Then he was gone, lost among the crowd that was preparing the shuttle for departure.
Pushing his way past technicians and engineers, Jim boarded the small spacecraft. It was crowded inside, the majority of seats already occupied by uniformed cadets. Some of them were non-human.
Uhura was there. Her reaction when she saw him among the other recruits was almost worth enlisting, he decided gleefully. One of the cadets seated nearby sported a bandaged nose, and Jim remembered him from the earlier night’s altercation. He grinned cockily as he strode past.
The rest of the smackdown bunch were present as well. As he walked by he repeated the casual finger salute with which he had farewelled Captain Pike.
“At ease, gentlemen.” He lingered near Uhura. “Never did get that first name.”
She fought to repress a grin and was only partly successful. “And you never will.”
A whine began to rise from the vessel’s stern. Time to find a seat slot or get off, he told himself.
Locating an empty chair, he sat down and began to strap himself in. Behind and beneath him the seat’s integrated ergonomics responded to his presence by molding themselves to the back of his body. As he worked to prepare himself for liftoff, he was distracted by a commotion from the rear of the craft.
Florid-faced and clearly upset, a slightly older gentleman was being forced out of the bathroom by one of the shuttle’s crew. He looked to be about thirty, and his steady litany of complaint was tinged with an accent that identified his origins as southeastern North America. The expression he wore as he continued to protest was familiar to Jim. Having himself been hauled before a judge on several occasions, he recognized it as the look common to all prisoners who had just been sentenced to an unexpectedly long spell in the regional lockup.
“Are you people deaf?” the objector was loudly declaiming. “I told you I don’t need a doctor, dammit! I am a doctor!”
Gently but firmly, the member of the shuttle’s crew was wrestling the man forward. “You need to find a seat. Sir, for your own safety, sit down, or I will make you sit down. Right now.”
“I had one,” the man insisted vociferously. “In the bathroom, with no ports. I suffer from aviaphobia, which, in case you don’t understand big words, means ‘fear of flying.’”
Wrenching the complainer around forcefully, the tight-lipped crew member pushed him in the direction of one of the few remaining empty seats. As this happened to be right next to Jim, the frustrated protestor found himself dropping down beside the casually clad younger man.
Muttering to himself, the frustrated newcomer adjusted his straps. When he was finished, he gripped both armrests so tightly his knuckles went white. Despite the shuttle’s excellent climate control, he was perspiring noticeably. He also, finally, took note of the unashamedly inquisitive passenger seated beside him. The greeting he offered was unconventional.
“I might throw up on you.”
Jim replied pleasantly. “Nice to meet you, too. Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s thrown up on me.” He tapped his own armrest. “I think these things are pretty safe. Starfleet’s been using this model for a long time.”
“Don’t pander to me, kid,” his new neighbor growled. “One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Unpredicted solar flare might strike when we leave the magnetosphere and cook us in our seats. Hell, some of the damn passengers are blue. Wait’ll you’re sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you’re still so relaxed when you’re bleeding from your eye sockets, tell me if you’re still feeling good when ship gravity fails and your intestines start wrapping themselves around your stomach, ask yourself—”
Sensing that the ghoulish recitation of potential physiological disasters was liable to continue until they reached their destination, Jim tried to put a stop to it.
“I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space. Are you sure you didn’t apply for a position with the Chicago Transit Authority?”
His traveling companion subsided a little. “Yeah, well—my ex-wife took everything in the divorce. You’d think that a species that’s succeeded in reaching the stars could have managed by now to devise a more equitable method for dividing communal assets. Sometimes I think the Klingons have the right idea. Anyway, I got nowhere to go but up.”
Smiling, Jim extended a hand. “Jim Kirk.”
The exasperated physician eyed him warily, then nodded and took the proffered hand. “Leonard McCoy.”
“Took everything?”
McCoy nodded again. “Yeah—everything of mine, including the planet. All I got left is the skeleton, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she put a lien out on that.”
The whine at the stern rose to a fevered pitch. The shuttle rocked slightly, rose to a predetermined height, and then swerved. As it cleared the construction and administration complex it accelerated rapidly, shoving its passengers back into their protective padding. From where he was seated Jim had only a partial view out one of the ports. Beneath the ascending craft the surface of the Earth was falling away rapidly. Iowa was falling away rapidly. He settled himself back in his seat. He was leaving behind everything he had ever known, every vestige and reminder of his life to this point in time.
Good riddance.
[NFB, NFI. Taken, once again, from Alan Dean Foster's novelization of the first Star Trek movie. Booooooones!]
Dismounting, Jim came toward him. He carried no baggage save for unfulfilled expectations. He looked as cocky as he had that night in the bar, albeit somewhat less weather-beaten. As he strode purposefully toward Pike, a passing worker paused to glance in the direction of the parked bike.
“Nice ride.”
Without looking in the man’s direction Jim tossed him the ignition and identification card.
“Live it up.”
Reflexively catching the toss, the man gaped at him. “Hey, you kidding me…?” Jim did not even look at him. Did not look back. In the course of some very serious introspection, he had made a significant discovery.
He was tired of objects.
Halting directly in front of Pike, he regarded the captain evenly. For a moment neither man said anything. For a moment neither needed to do so. A good deal passed between them without having to be put into words. Pike eventually broke the silence.
“How did you get in here? Past security?”
The attitude was still present. “Told ’em I was your nephew. Came to say good-bye, not enough time to fill out the necessary requests, and they could check me with a retina scan. The guard-in-charge had her buddies go over my bike while she checked me out personally.” Jim grinned broadly. “Guard-in-charge was a gal. I can be very persuasive.”
“Yes,” Pike replied dryly, “I believe I saw ample evidence of that the other night.” Turning slightly, he indicated the waiting shuttle. “You’re here, that’s what matters. No time to fit you with a uniform, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all right,” Jim assured him. “I’m not real big on uniforms. They tend to get in my face.”
“Nevertheless you’ll be required to wear one. And not, if you please, over your face. Any last questions before you board?”
“You mean like, any last wishes? Just one. What’s the Academy’s policy on fraternization between cadets?”
Pike didn’t crack a smile. “You’ll find out. Just like you’ll find out the Academy’s policy on everything else.”
Jim started past him. “Won’t some poor psion-pusher get upset when I show up on board without appropriate paperwork?”
“If there’s any problem, use me as a reference,” Pike told him. “Just try not to reference me too often, okay?”
Smiling, Jim snapped off a farewell salute. Or to be more precise, flicked one finger at the captain from the general vicinity of his forehead. Then he was gone, lost among the crowd that was preparing the shuttle for departure.
Pushing his way past technicians and engineers, Jim boarded the small spacecraft. It was crowded inside, the majority of seats already occupied by uniformed cadets. Some of them were non-human.
Uhura was there. Her reaction when she saw him among the other recruits was almost worth enlisting, he decided gleefully. One of the cadets seated nearby sported a bandaged nose, and Jim remembered him from the earlier night’s altercation. He grinned cockily as he strode past.
The rest of the smackdown bunch were present as well. As he walked by he repeated the casual finger salute with which he had farewelled Captain Pike.
“At ease, gentlemen.” He lingered near Uhura. “Never did get that first name.”
She fought to repress a grin and was only partly successful. “And you never will.”
A whine began to rise from the vessel’s stern. Time to find a seat slot or get off, he told himself.
Locating an empty chair, he sat down and began to strap himself in. Behind and beneath him the seat’s integrated ergonomics responded to his presence by molding themselves to the back of his body. As he worked to prepare himself for liftoff, he was distracted by a commotion from the rear of the craft.
Florid-faced and clearly upset, a slightly older gentleman was being forced out of the bathroom by one of the shuttle’s crew. He looked to be about thirty, and his steady litany of complaint was tinged with an accent that identified his origins as southeastern North America. The expression he wore as he continued to protest was familiar to Jim. Having himself been hauled before a judge on several occasions, he recognized it as the look common to all prisoners who had just been sentenced to an unexpectedly long spell in the regional lockup.
“Are you people deaf?” the objector was loudly declaiming. “I told you I don’t need a doctor, dammit! I am a doctor!”
Gently but firmly, the member of the shuttle’s crew was wrestling the man forward. “You need to find a seat. Sir, for your own safety, sit down, or I will make you sit down. Right now.”
“I had one,” the man insisted vociferously. “In the bathroom, with no ports. I suffer from aviaphobia, which, in case you don’t understand big words, means ‘fear of flying.’”
Wrenching the complainer around forcefully, the tight-lipped crew member pushed him in the direction of one of the few remaining empty seats. As this happened to be right next to Jim, the frustrated protestor found himself dropping down beside the casually clad younger man.
Muttering to himself, the frustrated newcomer adjusted his straps. When he was finished, he gripped both armrests so tightly his knuckles went white. Despite the shuttle’s excellent climate control, he was perspiring noticeably. He also, finally, took note of the unashamedly inquisitive passenger seated beside him. The greeting he offered was unconventional.
“I might throw up on you.”
Jim replied pleasantly. “Nice to meet you, too. Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s thrown up on me.” He tapped his own armrest. “I think these things are pretty safe. Starfleet’s been using this model for a long time.”
“Don’t pander to me, kid,” his new neighbor growled. “One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Unpredicted solar flare might strike when we leave the magnetosphere and cook us in our seats. Hell, some of the damn passengers are blue. Wait’ll you’re sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you’re still so relaxed when you’re bleeding from your eye sockets, tell me if you’re still feeling good when ship gravity fails and your intestines start wrapping themselves around your stomach, ask yourself—”
Sensing that the ghoulish recitation of potential physiological disasters was liable to continue until they reached their destination, Jim tried to put a stop to it.
“I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space. Are you sure you didn’t apply for a position with the Chicago Transit Authority?”
His traveling companion subsided a little. “Yeah, well—my ex-wife took everything in the divorce. You’d think that a species that’s succeeded in reaching the stars could have managed by now to devise a more equitable method for dividing communal assets. Sometimes I think the Klingons have the right idea. Anyway, I got nowhere to go but up.”
Smiling, Jim extended a hand. “Jim Kirk.”
The exasperated physician eyed him warily, then nodded and took the proffered hand. “Leonard McCoy.”
“Took everything?”
McCoy nodded again. “Yeah—everything of mine, including the planet. All I got left is the skeleton, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she put a lien out on that.”
The whine at the stern rose to a fevered pitch. The shuttle rocked slightly, rose to a predetermined height, and then swerved. As it cleared the construction and administration complex it accelerated rapidly, shoving its passengers back into their protective padding. From where he was seated Jim had only a partial view out one of the ports. Beneath the ascending craft the surface of the Earth was falling away rapidly. Iowa was falling away rapidly. He settled himself back in his seat. He was leaving behind everything he had ever known, every vestige and reminder of his life to this point in time.
Good riddance.
[NFB, NFI. Taken, once again, from Alan Dean Foster's novelization of the first Star Trek movie. Booooooones!]