To Boldly Go
S J Smith
Disclaimer: Oh, boy, do I own nothing. NOTHING. (I'm not even sure I want to claim this thing.)
Spoilers: Very, very doubtful.
Rating: If you watch the series, you can read this.
Warnings: Crack. Oh, much crack.
A.N.: Cross-genre (not 'cross-gender', if you're reading quickly)…and that's all I'm sayin' right now.
Much thanks to: D. M. Evans, Mjules, Silvrethorn and Diinzumo for reading and saying I wasn't quite out of my mind. Er…yet. If I start writing sequels, we'll talk.
Captain's log, Stardate: 220617. On a routine voyage to….
"Routine, sir?" Spock raised an eyebrow at that comment.
James T. Kirk, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, sent a glare at his second in command. As usual, Spock stared back levelly, his head tilting minutely. Kirk let out a sigh between his teeth slowly. "All right, so it wasn't that routine," he muttered, slumping in his chair. Who was he kidding? It was routine for his ship, for his command, but this world, this…Amestris…was something beyond the norm even for him.
"Listen." McCoy cupped his hand to his ear. "You can almost hear that Prime Directive breaking."
"Stow it, Bones." Kirk shifted a little uncomfortably, cutting his eyes away from the knowing stare of the doctor.
"C'mon, Jim," McCoy rocked on his heels. "You can't tell me that that ragtag army didn't tug at your heartstrings."
Kirk harrumphed, tapping his fingers on the computer console.
"And that you saw a little of yourself in that Colonel Mustang." McCoy's grin was all too sly. "Maybe more than a little."
"Bones," Kirk growled. He swung his chair around to meet the combined gazes of McCoy and Spock. "I understand, gentlemen, what you're trying to do."
"Do you, sir?" Spock clasped his hands behind his back.
"You're trying to make me understand that what I did, what I decided to do, is not in the best interests of those people." Kirk leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "But what do you suggest that I should have done? At the time, neither of you had any better answers." He straightened, raising his eyebrows at them both. McCoy hmphed and glanced away. Spock, well, Spock just gave him that damned level stare. "Would you have preferred I let them die?"
McCoy's face fell into a scowl. "That's not what I'm saying, Jim," he said, "just that," he gestured, "I'm not sure what Starfleet Command is gonna say about you just transporting these people off their world."
"Especially," Spock said, with a faint hint of irritation bleeding into his voice, something Kirk might've teased him about at any other time, "people of this nature."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Kirk began but the intercom beeped. He touched the button. "Kirk here."
"Cap'n, ye gotta stop her!" Scotty sounded horrified. "She's takin' apart the engines!"
Kirk blew out a sigh through his nose. "Mr. Scott. She's one little girl. Surely, you can stop one. Little. Girl."
A metallic clang echoed even through the com link. "Cap'n," Scott groaned, "the engines canna take her any more!"
Before Kirk could answer, the com beeped again. Touching the button, he said warily, "Kirk here."
"Captain," Uhura sounded a bit strangled. "Colonel Mustang set something else on fire in the rec room."
Gritting teeth, Kirk said, "Take. The gloves. Away. From him."
The beep came again and Kirk smacked it, roaring, "What?"
"Hey, is this Captain Kirk?" That cheery voice was going to set his hair on end.
"This is...?" Kirk forced his hands to relax on the monitor. His knuckles were going white.
"Edward Elric. You know, I thought your ship looked a little plain. I hope you didn't mind, I made a few modifications to it." There was a horrified screech in the background. "Heh. I think someone found one of them!"
"Brother!"
"Oh, calm down, Al. It's cool now!"
Kirk flipped off the com link, leaning his head onto the table top. The chill surface felt good against his forehead. "Ideas, gentlemen? How soon can we get them off my ship?"
McCoy coughed. The corners of Spock's mouth turned down. They both folded their arms. Before either of them could answer, the lights dimmed suddenly and the faint hum that permeated the ship, that provided a continuous background noise, silenced.
Kirk sat up abruptly. "What is that?" he asked.
"Silence, sir." Spock blinked slowly. "Or, in a more precise term, the sound of all power in the Enterprise being shut off."
The com beeped again as Kirk opened his mouth to reply. He stabbed the button. "Kirk."
"Um…hi?"
He recognized the girl's voice, tentative though it was. "Tell me," Kirk said, "what. You did. To my ship."
"I tried to stop him but he's an idiot."
"I am not!"
"You made all the engines stop! Tell me how that makes you brilliant!"
"I - "
There was a horrifying clanging sound and a cry of, "Brother!" McCoy winced reflexively. Kirk tightened his hands into fists. Spock looked on quizzically.
"What do you think that was?" McCoy asked, when no further sounds came from the com.
"The sound of a skull being struck with a wrench," Spock said concisely.
Kirk held up his hand before his second in command could go into further detail. Spock gave him that, 'I was just getting started look' but subsided. There was another clang and a yelp. "Winry, will you watch it with that thing?"
Clang. "Put it back, Edward, right now." Clang.
"I will, I will! Put down that wrench!" The sound echoed with a faint roar, like thunder, and as if on cue, the humming came back on. Clang. "Yeowtch! Winry! I fixed it! Dammit, stop hitting me!"
Kirk sighed, leaning his forehead into his hands. "Mr. Spock. Please tell me there's a base within the vicinity."
Spock pondered this. "Well, Captain," he said, and Kirk could have sworn Spock's eyes twinkled, "there is always Sigma Iotia II."
Frowning, Kirk asked, "Iotia, Iotia…not the one with the gangsters."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, hell," McCoy muttered under his breath.
"Spock, why…there?" Kirk winced as the volume of the kids' squabble increased over the com link.
"It is the closest in proximity to the Amestrians' own technology," Spock said, "and logically, I believe they would adapt better there than anywhere else." He paused. Definitely a twinkle. "Not to mention it's less than two Terran days away."
"It'd give me a chance to get my communicator back," McCoy said thoughtfully. His craggy face pulled into a scowl. "If they haven't enshrined it by now."
"Maybe we'd better take a look in on them," Kirk said, only a hint of concern in his voice.
The com beeped again. All three men looked at it. Wearily, Kirk activated the link. "Kirk."
Nurse Chapel's voice came on. "Captain, I'm trying to find Doctor McCoy," she said. "That patient, Lieutenant Havoc, the one with the spinal injury? He wants a cigarette." There was a pause. "What's a cigarette?"
Kirk opened his mouth and stopped, raising his eyebrows hopelessly at the other two. McCoy muttered, "Guess I'd better get back to sickbay," he said.
"Spock," Kirk began wearily.
"I'll start laying in a course change now." Spock left the room, almost hastily for him, Kirk thought.
"Well, Jim," McCoy said, patting Kirk's shoulder, "when all this is said and done, I don't want you to forget that-"
"I know, I know," Kirk interrupted, slumping onto the table in front of him. "You told me so."
"You got it." McCoy grinned as he strolled out the door, shaking his head. "Alchemy. What's next, magic wands and pixie dust?" As the door swept closed behind McCoy, Kirk thumped his head back onto the table, wondering where he'd hidden that last bottle of Andorian brandy. He figured he deserved it.
The battle cruiser continued on its heading out of the Neutral Zone, Captain Koloth smiling faintly while watching his new crewmembers. Next to him, Korax mumbled, "They look too human."
As if the creature heard, it turned towards them, showing a face as guileless as a child's. "Don't let appearances fool you," it said, its form morphing into a mirror of Korax's own. Approximating Korax's voice, it hooked a heavy thumb at the creature wearing two swords on its back. "We're not human at all."