Hello everyone. First I would like to say thank you so much to everyone who's been reading They Actually Recruited Us? You've all been so wonderful and positive, and I've really needed that for the past couple of days. Sincerely, thank you.

Here's the second installment of this series. Obviously, the first one was about when everyone's still at the Academy. This one's on the Enterprise. So now they're getting into space shenanigans. Yay. I hope yall like these as much as the other ones. I think I'll still be updating the Academy one as fun ideas come. Just a quick warning, all the posted Academy chapters had pretty much been all written before I started posting, which was why there were several chapters uploaded a day. Updates will be slower now, but I hope I don't lose interest in this series any time too soon. It's fun.

And since I didn't do it in the last story, here's a disclaimer: Any quotes that you recognize as being from a movie or television series belong to the respective writers of that movie/show. Anything you recognize from TFLN came from that site. Anything else is an original scenario (aka something inspired by my time in college aka the dumb things my friends and I do when we go out).

Enjoy!


Sometimes, Jim Kirk lay awake during the night cycle, staring up at the ceiling of his quarters and wondering just what in the hell the admiralty of Starfleet was smoking.

Even at twenty-five years old, Jim had an ego large enough that he wasn't entirely surprised that he had been officially promoted to the rank of captain, but they had given him the Enterprise. The God damned USS Enterprise! She was the shining star of the Federation's armada. And they had given her to him. Then, in their next pot-induced adventure, the admiralty had let him pick his own crew. Of course, he chose every single one who had been there during the whole Narada thing, filling in the gaps carefully. His crew was excellent, if a bit young.

But Jim trusted these people. They had followed him the brink and back. They were good people. And his senior staff was beyond. He had Bones running medical, just like he'd been telling the doctor for years. He had Uhura—he knew her name now—and Gaila. He had Scotty (and his fantastic hooch), Sulu and that cute little Chekov kid. He even had Spock. Everything was perfect.

The ship was only a couple of weeks into the mission. The last time they had all been together had been a time of great mourning. Vulcan had been destroyed, along with a near generation of Starfleet talent. Jim felt all of that loss personally. He had spent months during debriefings, memorial ceremonies, and preparations for the five-year mission beating himself up for not doing more, for not acting fast enough. A part of Jim would continue to mourn all those lives that had been lost for the rest of his life, but he recognized that it was time to move on.

His crew had bonded over the shared tragedy, over surviving when their friends had not. Now they needed to bond on a different level, on a friendly level, where they could recall memories with smiles rather than tears. And Jim couldn't think of any better way than laser tag.

It was a small hell trying to get Bones and Spock to agree, thus rounding up personnel from the Sciences. Scotty and Sulu, bless their souls, were all for it, and helped with recruiting. Uhura agreed after Gaila made pouting faces, and soon enough, Jim had nearly all the crew signed up and ready to play.

It was far too soon into the mission to dig into the shore leave package, so Jim devised a cunning plan to fool any brass who asked why they were in orbit over the colony planet Rudon. Jim wouldn't be able to lie about where they were down on the planet, but twisting the reasoning wouldn't hurt anyone.

"No one in the entire universe would really think that you're seriously using this as combat training for the crew," Bones grumbled as he dropped behind a barricade to sit by Jim.

"What are you doing over here," Jim asked. "You're supposed to be with your team."

"Jim, this is stupid," the doctor continued. "You've got us holed up in a damned kiddy play place! Joanna's too big for this."

"Okay, one, you are never too old for laser tag," Jim said. Over his shoulder, Sulu nodded sagely. "Second, I know it's probably shoved up there good and tight, but try to take that stick out of your ass for a few minutes and have some fun. I mean, Christ, Spock is playing."

Bones arched a brow, clearly unimpressed by Jim's arguments. Jim resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. Last time he did that, Bones had grabbed it. Well, Bones could grumble and pout like a big baby for all Jim cared—like that wasn't his default emotion anyway—this was going to be fun. And so what if the laser tag was at a kiddy play place, and so what if the owner, recognizing Jim's face from all the holonews feeds, had practically fallen over himself to offer the place for the crew's private use for the evening. So what.

"Look, Bones, it's a good set up. I mean, we're all split up into teams, we've got leaders, and we've even got an enemy." The teams were all divided by the basic tracks of Command, Science, and Operations, excluding one rag-tag team that was playing the part of the "enemy Klingons". The Enterprise teams were all set up, waiting for the upcoming raid.

"It's juvenile," Bones said.

Jim huffed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a packet of bubble gum. He offered some to Bones, but his friend merely curled him lip in disgust. "Suit yourself," Jim said, shoving a large wad into his mouth. "Won't be long now," he said, lowering his voice in his best—absolutely terrible—imitation of Bones's accent. "Not long t'all."

"You said that almost an hour ago," Bones complained. "Those morons are probably playing in the God damned ball pit." He paused for a moment. "Why are you trying to speak with a Southern accent?"

"It's the chaw, boy," Jim said, shoving all the gum down in front of his bottom teeth, imitating dip. Hefting up his gun, he leaned over towards Bones, ready to depart words of wisdom in the calm before the battle. "Nobody can predict the twisted mind of the Klingon. But they're coming. And they're coming hard. Their ain't gonna come polite. They ain't gonna be ringing no doorbell."

As soon as he said it, there was the sound of chimes from the front of the room, signifying someone trying to get into the play place. At the sound, everyone ducked down behind their cover, some letting out startled yelps. Jim wiggled until he had flipped onto his stomach, peeking through a hole in the wall. He grabbed his comm. and, still using that ridiculous accent, said, "Doorbell! Doorbell! We've got doorbell. We're on high alert. Gold Team is go. Blue leader?"

There was a slight crackling noise—Jim had confiscated all of his senior staff's comms and tweaked them to sound like old twentieth century walkie talkies—and Spock's voice said, "Blue team is ready and awaiting further instruction, Captain."

"Red team," Jim asked.

There was silence on the other end.

"Red team," Jim asked a bit more frantically, and Bones rolled his eyes.

The static crackled, and Scotty said, "I ordered a pizza."

From several positions throughout the room, crewmembers groaned at the let down. People fell into easier positions, tossing their guns onto the ground. Jim hung his head for a brief second before activating his comm. again and broadcasting, "And we all learned a lesson: PACK A SNACK."

He dropped the comm. and fished around in his pockets. He pulled out a credit chip and slapped it into Chekov's hand. "Here, go get the pizza."

Chekov stared up at Jim, eyes wide. "But what if it's the Klingons," he asked, nervous as though this were a real life or death situation. Bones let out a humorless bark of laughter and buried his face in a hand.

Jim arched a brow, offered the kid a smile and said, "Then tip them poorly. Get going." As Chekov shimmied over the barricade, Jim muttered into the comm., "That had better be meat lover's, Scotty."