Also I don't own any of the Star Trek movie characters, plots, etc.
Summer 2249
Bleary-eyed she found the pink bunny alarm clock her bestie Zandi had given her showing a bright green 0800 hours. Searching through the covers for her favorite PADD Uhura checked her messages, not wanting to leave the comfort of her bed and the colorful wall designs despite the excitement sure to follow.
Nyota spent extra time looking at the imitations of her favorite artists spread out over the walls in colorful life. She had taken a hodgepodge of artistic periods and jammed them into her room and loved the discordant feel. Even when Zandi had convinced her that a neon green would add the finishing touch Nyota was happy with the rush of color and feeling clear there.
Still Nyota had bigger things to think about. Today she would embark on an exchange of culture that few could claim, and it would add to her growing list of experiences that would mold her into the star-crossing, culturally sensitive, linguistic bad ass that she would need to be to conquer her longterm goals.
All that and she was ready to spend some time speaking the language she had only heard via recordings or short sessions with her mother. Even at fifteen Nyota had learned to speak somewhat passable Vulcan and she wanted to make sure that by the time she applied for the academy it was as close to flawless as possible.
So Nyota Uhura was going to go with her parents to Vulcan. And if she could make it out of bed, they might even get on the shuttle waiting to take them to the transit station in Nairobi in time for their beam up to the international spaceport over San Francisco by noon.
Clawing her way through the fabric of her coverlet, Uhura was able to twist out of the purple, pink contraption at last, with only a few chunks of hair coming out of her loose ponytail.
Standing up straight she stretched and padded into the bathroom to shower before beginning the journey.
Her mother's voice echoed up the stairwell, "Nyota you better get down here if you want anything to eat before we have to take off!" It felt like a regular school morning with the mass of nerves that had started to form in her belly.
shrugging into a cute strappy white top and a comfy gold pullover for the cold shuttle and breathable fabric leggings, Uhura took one last look at her now kempt hair and outfit before lugging her suitcase up from the floor and slipping on a pair of black plush-lined boots for the occasion.
It was never cold in Kenya and wouldn't be cold on the desert-like Vulcan, but she was taking no chances with the chill that formed in her bones during long shuttle travel.
Grabbing a warm baked sweet potato and a swig of chilled tea, Nyota was out the door to present her bag to the waiting attendant. She hated the idea that it would be almost three months before she and Zandi could hang out and felt a twinge of regret that her friend couldn't make it out to say goodbye. At least they were both occupied with things this summer instead of one person being alone.
Noticing Nyota's sad face, her father and mother looked at eachother knowingly, giving their young daughter time to look out at the horizon in the direction of Zandi's house before closing the shuttle door and puttering off to the transport station.
ON VULCAN
Abrasive sounds came from the comm as Spock passed by his mother absorbing a culture lesson in the study to help with the visit by an Earth diplomat, her husband, and their teenage daughter. Apparently on Earth young adults were encouraged to some very interesting forms of self expression. Spock, while glad for his mother's attentiveness to detail, was unable to glean merit from the media she was enduring and inwardly thanked his Vulcan upbringing from at least saving him from such noise.
At eighteen Spock was more occupied with him upcoming interview with the Vulcan Science Academy counsel. After years of work and enduring the taunts of inferiority from his peers and elders alike Spock would be afforded the opportunity to gain some measure of respect and secretly he hoped acceptance.
It was with un-Vulcan anticipation that Spock waited for the moment, some two months away, when with a probability of 87.6993 percent he might be accepted to what he had come to think of as the answer.