STAR TREK - the Farm Boy and the Physicist

Chapter One (part One) - PARNASSUS

Starbase 44; familiarly, "Foggy Bottom"

Stardate : 4770 . 03

Earth Date (Greenwich Standard) June 22, 2262

Tau Ceti... Corona Austrailius... Venaticorum... Cepheus Majoris... Sol...

On his back, in the wide, too-comfortable bed, he was staring up through the plastiglass window, a skylight of sorts, that curved across nearly the entire ceiling of his luxuriant VIP suite. It was an idle exercise he even, occasionally, fell into on the bridge, in the Chair, while the Enterprise was moving on impulse. He was picking out and separating the stars that provided light and life to the some one hundred and five worlds that presently comprised the United Federation of Planets, further dividing those stars, and their systems of planets, into those to which he'd voyaged, those he wanted to explore, and those that held no interest, at least to him.

In another mental column, he was listing the stars he identified as those that anchored the nearly two dozen solar systems held together, in thrall, by the so-called Klingon Empire... Indus-Morska... Granalda... a binary, Alpha and Beta Penthe... Kronos'baH...

He felt her move beside him and knew right away, she wasn't asleep. Her shifting motions were too decided, in that confident way she'd had since first meeting; laying partly on her stomach and partly on her side, her smooth, bare left thigh sliding slowly over and across his legs.

"Can't sleep?" Carol Marcus asked him, her voice clear of any of the fog of in-and-out slumber.

"Too much on my mind," Jim Kirk replied.

"Ask a silly question," she murmured, pretending to chide herself.

"A whole lot of space out there," he said. "Empty space."

"Well, yes. That is the way it works."

She recognized the seriousness in his soft tones, a seriousness actually and uniquely more Jim Kirk's than that of the Captain of the Enterprise, if you could separate the two. And up until recently, she didn't think that possible; she had discovered, just days before, how distinct the two could be in their first genuine lovers' argument; an argument still unresolved and impatiently awaiting engagement.

But she also knew, from experience, that in their current personal circumstances, in ways of which he may not even be fully aware - - subconsciously perhaps - - he was egging her into taking him on. That was the kind of fight they both enjoyed with one another, a light sparring of quick-witted smarts and strong emotions.

This time she decided, instead, to ease into things and play it cool, as a kind of tease. And she knew very well - - also from experience, only of the finest kind - - how he responded to her when she subjected him to an expert's tease... and the effect his response had on her.

"I've never thought of you as a glass half-empty kind of guy," she said. "In fact, you're the man who always orders another round."

When his attention shifted with a turn of his head from the ocean of distant stars to her, she knew she had him, that this engagement was hers to lose.

"Is that right?" he asked with a touch of distinctly male bravado that she knew he clearly suspected she'd always found attractive - - and in some strange, inexplicable way, she admitted to herself, she did... coming from him.

"I want to ask you something," she said lightly, pushing herself closer into Jim's accommodating, lean but muscular shape. "When was the first time you realized you were feeling something for me?"

He frowned. "Who says I feel anything for you? You know me, a man of my reputation."

" Oh, you are - -," she laughed in genuine disbelief. "You self-centered, oh-so-pleased- with-yourself son-of-a - - You think you're really cute, don't you?"

"I have my moments."

Jim smiled up at her as she shifted position over him, resting on her right elbow and said with a flash and sparkle in her eyes, "That, you do..."

Carol moved her left hand under the thin cotton sheet that lay across them. He'd pushed the sheet down 'round his waist; their combined body heat was more than enough for him. Besides, partly keeping herself from obsessing too much over her work, she'd upped the suite's temperature in what he'd found a lovely attempt to simulate a tropical clime on Vishiki's endless Western coast, or even Lihue on Earth, during their seventy-five hour working stay at "Foggy Bottom" to discuss and present to Admirals Harmon, Hennessy and Ngyuen, and even the "Grand Dame,' C-in-C Eleanor Parker, the innovative defense strategy she and Spock, with an eager Ensign Chekov's able assistance, had developed to repel Klingon incursions in this sector. She'd tried turning their two rooms into a tropical vacation, complete with two large thermoses full of exotic mixed drinks she'd prepared with McCoy's help before beaming over to the orbital Command station.

Also, he'd learned well that Carol - - no fault of her own, really - - inevitably, unconsciously, pulled any and all blankets and bedsheets almost entirely over her own body during the course of a night. And, my gods, what an incredible body, Jim couldn't help but passingly think. Then he felt something and fought the instinctive wicked grin, even if he let the deep hint of a growl softly rise from deep in his throat...

She'd moved her left hand lightly up along his inner thigh, touching him only with her immaculately shaped and manicured finger nails, painted in a carefully chosen cerulean. She'd like to have grown her nails just a touch, as she had in her eighteen month long series of pure research assignments over a year prior to the Enterprise, but serving as the ship's Chief Weapons Officer fell under her responsibilities as the Advanced Weaponry and New Technologies Science Specialist, a somewhat nebulous title that her Captain had thought up for her when she'd agreed enthusiastically for the five year mission. And as James Kirk's utterly reliable "Weaps," she'd made the necessary accommodations to what was, surprisingly quite often, very physical, hands- on work. Regardless, she knew the touch and light scratch of her nails against Jim's skin had raised every hair on his body, and had lit a fire under his every nerve's tip. And as that low masculine sound rumbled, and that she could feel as a light vibration through his chest, her hand moved between his legs and she took firm and confident, authoritative hold of him.

That low nascent growl became a soft moan and he started to say, "Carol... you are quite the- - ."

"Shhhh - - Shhhh," she sounded softly, a quiet admonition. "I want you quiet. In fact, until I say otherwise, you speak only when I tell you to. For instance, I believe I asked you a question..."

Her fingers moved upwards, stroking him.

Jim lost his struggle with the emerging wicked look and replied, "Better keep that up. I'm still working on the answer."

"Wipe that grin off your face. I'm serious. And I think you know by now..." Her words disappearing in the dark as she lowered her head so that her lips were just barely above his, she whispered, "... just how serious I can be."

She grazed her lips across his and drew assuredly away.

He lurched up to catch her with a full kiss but she jerked back with a light laugh and pushed his head back to the thick pillow, her fingers twined tight in his thick hair.

"Don't move," she told him. "Stay absolutely still." She lightened the pressure her knees and long, muscled thighs had pressing in tightly on either side of his hips and slid, with some grace, down his body, tracing a string of kisses down his throat to his chest and his hard stomach. She reached behind her, finding the light bed sheet, and drew it up over her shoulders.

His eyes closing, Jim slowly reached up and took firm hold of the bed's headboard with its artful cuts and stylings into a local ancient hieroglyphics. He couldn't hold back the deep intake of breath as the warmth of her mouth, the sharp hardness of her teeth, the liquid magic imagination of her tongue traced every centimetric curve and and angle of his mid-section.

She looked up at him, drew her nails sharply down the length of his thighs and Jim tilted his head up, at an awkward angle looking downwards in time to be hit by the carnality, the ferocity, of her smile, her eyes, just in time before she threw the blanket over top of herself and, beneath it, between his legs, Carol, in one of Jim's own turns of phrase, "lit him up."

"In the shuttle. That first time."

"What?"

"On our way up to the Enterprise. That first time. She was docked at Base One, waiting for us. You, me, Bones, Spock- -"

"I'm sorry?"

"The first damn time I laid eyes on you!"

"What are you talking about?," Carol finally asked, fully distracted now, having fallen half-way asleep, pulling herself up a little on an elbow, looking down at Jim who was staring up at the star-filled skylight again. He glanced at her, a little confused by her response.

"The answer to your question," he explained. "To be honest, I thought it was a little - - I don't know - - "girl-y" coming from you. A little teenage. But once I thought about it- - "

"My quest - - ?," she started, interrupting him, as her memory began filling in a few blank spaces. She twisted around and crashed back down on her side of the bed with a low groan. "God, I had one or two - - or three - - too many of those martinis at the Commodore's welcoming do tonight. That Lemurian vodka is unnatural."

"Maybe I shouldn't have told the bartender you preferred generous doubles, huh?"

"You didn't."

"Well, you do."

"I do."

"So, what about you?" As Jim asked, he made sure to inflect his tone with an appropriate lightheartedness though he'd admit to her, much later, he did so mainly not to unsettle her; in fact, despite his assured, experienced nature, he was genuinely curious about her answer.

"What about me what?"

"When did you start falling for me?"

"Wait. Are you saying," Carol started, then confusion etched her forehead, her eyes. "What are you saying?"

Jim's mouth opened a little as he almost began to explain - - but she leapfrogged him, with brusque dispassion of a manner he recognized as uniquely hers in moments of intellectual and, sometimes, even emotional confusion.

"You're saying you had feelings for me the first time we met - - the first time you ever saw me. That's absolute nonsense."

Jim's mouth hinted a small frown and she recognized from the slightest shift in his body's position, the slightest way he turned from her, his gaze returning to the stars, was really a way to cloak even the smallest suggestion of garish or sentimental emotionalism. And she couldn't blame him. Despite the lightness of Jim's attitude with something she herself had raised, in that unintentional "girl-y" way, her handling of his answer had been in her all-business, somewhat stern, and dismissive tone that she employed on the job, in the lab or at her duty station on the Enterprise bridge.

"What's wrong? Did I say something - -." She broke off and said, simply, and with her heart, "I'm sorry."

"I just thought - - No, forget it."

"No. What did you think?"

"I just thought - - well, the romantic fool somewhere inside a me thought, you might have felt the same thing." He punctuated his supposition with a knowing smirk of encouragement.

Carol started to answer - -

But Jim's aggressive instincts kicked in.

"I mean, hell, Bones even noticed it. The looks we were giving each other, that smile of yours. Said we were - - his words, now - - practically putting on a display. And that was his polite way of describing it."

"Oh, really? I may have to have a word with the doctor," she said. "My smile, huh? And what did Leonard have to say about your performance?"

"In that shuttle, you mean?"

"Mmm-hmm. That is what we're talking about."

"Well, I'll tell ya... he's been witness, in the past - - the past - - to more than a few of my displays of charm when it comes to the ladies- - A past long gone. And over- -"

"No doubt."

"But in your case, you and me, at first sight- - he said he'd never seen me or any man so obviously smitten. He used that word - - smitten - - in an actual sentence, in actual conversation. And he meant it."

She smiled, only slightly, and looked away as she settled back on her pillow. Jim waited a moment, aware of the silence that had come over her, and gave her a little shove with what he realized - - almost immediately after the words left his mouth - - was a typically male form of limited, and flawed, insight into the female thought process...

"Y'know, it's funny but shortly after we first met and you told me who you really are, I remember thinking - - just a passing thought - - was this beautiful, accomplished and charming woman just playing me to get aboard my ship? Had she really managed to seduce me with just a smile? Granted, one hell of a smile - - but still... I mean, I'm not so easy a mark- -"

"Jim. Stop," she finally said in a release of breath-held exasperation. "Please."

He stopped and, rolling to face her, made an emotional guess, trying to make even guilt into part of his appeal. "I'm digging myself a hole, aren't I?"

"Deeper and deeper."

Jim turned back to lay looking up at the stars again, letting out a sigh of exasperation with his own damn self. Now she rolled over to him, smiling a little, deciding she couldn't let him get by that easy.

"Oh, please don't tell me you're sulking."

"No, of course not. I'm wallowing in self-pity. There's a notable difference," he replied, playing out a make-believe, overdone touchy quality.

"You know how handsome you are when that overactive mind of yours pushes past warp nine point nine?"

"I've heard that, actually."

She stretched up close to him, giving Jim a quick little kiss on his lips. Then, laying back down, she rested her head against his bare shoulder.

Jim reached over to the night stand and picked up her cold glass of Altair water and handed it to her. Carol took a good draft, and a moment to think about whether she should ask...

"What convinced you?"

He glanced down at her, frowned. "Convinced me of what?"

"What convinced you," she said concentrating through the lingering vapors of Lemurian vodka, her clipped Brit becoming a little more pronounced as a result, "that I wasn't - - because I most certainly was not - - making eyes at you as a means to more easily attain what I was looking for? The real story about those... damned torpedoes of his."

Jim began to answer- - was about to ask, "Who's torpedoes?", that three hundred years out of date genetic monster and megalomaniacal homicidal warlord or the megalomanical, damn-the-torpedoes homicidal warlord she knew as "dad" - when something he'd thought about more than once as he and Lieutenant Carol Marcus grew closer and very intimate, a concern really, kicked loose in back of his head.

He was keenly aware that once she'd co-operated fully with Starfleet Internal's investigators and had been deposed at length, several times, regarding her now painful relationship with her late father, both personally and professionally, as well as her knowledge of his political beliefs and decisions, including those related to a "secret agent" called "Harrison," as well as the Federation's status vis-a-vis the Klingon Empire, and that during that year prior to the rechristening and launch of the Enterprise on her five year mission, she had also, though largely still a stranger to him, been amongst his family and his closest crew, his friends, to spend time with him and see to his needs during his post-death recuperation, that since all of that, Carol had rarely spoken of, or even referred to, those events - - now nearly two years in the past - - or her father, the Admiral, Alexander Marcus ever again.

Jim was reminded again that asking what she'd just asked him, the circumstances it arose from... Hell, this- - she- - Carol Marcus- - was not one of his many pretend-relationships with another eager Starfleet lovely. And she was also far more than some half-assed teenage notion of a "girlfriend" or even the more adult but, for him, too melodramatic, too purple an idea of a "lover."

Who she was - - to him - - was really the deep down source of their spat the other night, their first, and he hoped only, yelling-and-cursing-and-rightfullygettinghisfaceslapped kind of argument. And it was also what was behind what she'd tried to raise with him as they got ready earlier that night for the reception and that he had deflected with a long kiss and a promise to deal with it as soon as they returned home, to the Enterprise.

But that was what was kicking around in the back of Jim Kirk's head.

In the here and now, he needed an answer for her. And it came to him in a flash, largely because he knew it was, in his way, the truth. His truth. And it didn't really surprise him, later, when it became a shared, and repeatable, private bit of humor just between them, and that she would find the most ridiculous of excuses to coax him into saying it...

"What convinced me?" he repeated. "My dear, there was no convincing involved. No convincing necessary at all..." He paused, and she responded as he had hoped; Carol pushed herself up and twisted 'round to look at him - - skeptically, but willing to play whatever game he had in mind this time.

"Okay... How'd you know I wasn't playing you? That I, in fact, fell hard and crazy for you the moment you laid your eyes on me?"

"Because I'm Jim Kirk."

She stared at him and his pleased-with-himself, rakish half-smile, blank faced, for not even a full beat...

And then she blew up laughing... laughing so hard, and harder still, that, short of breath, she made a small snorting sound- -

Causing Jim to start laughing as well... And inducing a wave of relief to whistle through his mind, that he'd deflected their big talk once,e again. With style. But he knew it was inevitable, the decision they had to make, about what the hell kind of future they were each prepared to have with one another, together, and all the bullshit they were going to have to deal with...

Jim pulled Carol back down beside him, as their laughter settled, though he couldn't contain an infectious chuckle - - Carol started to laugh, lightly, again - - pleased that he had shook up the reaction he knew she'd have, pleased simply that he'd made her laugh. She'd caught and appreciated the self-deprecating joke lurking inside his statement of bravado. She'd clearly understood how he was playing off the jokes, at his own expense, and for which she'd lately earned a new appreciation, at least from Bones and Uhura, for pushing him even further with a uniquely English deadpan.

He'd assumed early, and for too long, since she'd become a vital part of his crew, that the disciplined, aggressively straightforward, hardworking officer and scientific wunderkind who was, in a way, born Starfleet, had no sense of humor. She'd assembled a helluva fine staff for her reorganized weapons and high-tech research division but was considered something of a cold fish, rarely socializing and, other than her daily run below decks, the length of the ship and back again, and swimming a hundred lengths in the ship's gymnasium pool three times a week, spending most of her off-hours in her quarters, presumably alone.

He'd tried, off-duty or in social situations, as when he'd sit down with his officers in the mess or one of the rec lounges, to share a meal and some conversation, to wind her up a little with some of his straight-faced silliness. But, at first, she'd only ever lightly indulge him with a polite smile or a light nod or a small shake of her head.

But a comic side she most certainly had and he clearly remembered the first time he fell for that sense of humor of her's which, he discovered quite quickly, was very much unique to Lieutenant Carol Marcus...

The landing party Spock had assembled for the follow-up first-contact diplomatic mission to Parnassus Two had been forming up in the Enterprise's large transporter room - - Jim himself, Bones, Uhura, Security Chief Hendorff with two of his lieutenants, Federation envoy, and general pain in the ass, Robert Fox, noted xenologist, Karin Twambly who was Winona Kirk's greatest rival in that specialized field of study, and the latest in a long series of Jim's Yeomen, Stephanie Suarez - - waiting for the uncharacteristically late Weapons Officer and New Technologies specialist to join them.

The Parliament of Parnassus had specifically requested the Enterprise for this meeting, which was unusual in itself until it was discovered, in various diplomat's circles, and second or third hand after that, that the Princess Nisi, the teenaged figurehead-ruler of the planet-nation who, nonetheless, had final say over any decision made by the democratically elected Parliament, had developed an ardent admiration, fascination even, for the Captain of Starfleet's flagship.

She had, allegedly, read every Enterprise mission report that Captain James T. Kirk had filed and, once edited, and deemed appropriate in terms of security matters, been made public by Starfleet Command. And she was said to be obsessed over his defeat of the "advanced" alien intruder calling himself Nero, and the Captain's somewhat provocative description of his activities with his otherwise nameless female "Weaps" officer under cover on recent Federation inductee planet, Truss, and, of course, his heroic sacrifice and defeat of death itself in bringing an assassin and Starfleet traitor, John Harrison, to justice.

When an acquaintance of Jim's from the Academy - - a female acquaintance - - who was currently part of the Starfleet contingent of the U.F.P.'s First Contact Affairs and Protocols Office told the Enterprise Captain about the young Princess' obsession, he, naturally, had no choice but to run with it.

The Officers who were among his closest friends, and the longest-serving crew members assigned to bridge duty, at first found it reliably funny when their Captain, en route to Starbase Sixteen to pick up Federation diplomat Fox and the Xenologist, and subsequently on to Parnassus, found the slightest, smallest, most tangental happenstance and discussion point to mention that the only reason for this mission, the sole intention of the Parnassusians joining the Federation was because a teenage planetary Princess thought he was the greatest starship commander and leader in the entire galaxy... ever.

Those same Officers and crew also weren't taken off guard when he continued with the joke not just long after it was barely funny anymore but with intentionally increased regularity; they responded variously and predictably - - Spock tolerated it in his way, Uhura was the most exasperated, Chekov still found it legitimately funny while Sulu was amused by Chekov, and Bones was outright irritated, volubly so.

And they each started laughing again, hesitantly at first, then in fits and starts, and, at last, openly all over, irrationally, when his relentlessness did not ebb - - as if catching them on a second wind - - and he continued with the dumb, self-serving remarks until, at last, they made sub-light approach to Parnassus Two and achieved orbit.

Only two aboard the Enterprise, in Kirk's immediate command circle, apparently failed to find any humor in his remarks or blithe attitude - - Ambassador Fox, with whom Jim had worked, unpleasantly, settling the computerized war between sister planets Eminiar VII and Vendikar, during his year-long command of the ship after Nero and until Niburu, was one. Fox's failed diplomacy in that conflict, outdone and resolved by Kirk's brash, bold, if unorthodox and barely permissible, solution, now had the ambassador confused and unsettled by the Captain's aggressive swagger on this mission of peaceful exchange, and convinced that the reputedly wanton "ladies' man" had impure intentions regarding the young monarch.

The other was Science Officer, Lieutenant Carol Marcus.

When he'd begun the comic self-aggrandizing patter, keeping it relatively reasonable at first, during the mission brief with his gathered Officers and appropriate Section Chiefs in the strategy center, larger than the briefing room, with a half dozen rows of stadium- styled seating and walls covered with viz-screens in a perpetual data flow, he'd noticed Carol smiled at the jokes, or had shaken her head in some manner of appreciation.

In fact, he'd realized at the time, he had never seen her laugh openly and freely since joining his crew. She'd rarely even smiled and he knew - - from their first encounter - - that she had one killer smile, her lips a lovely shape of lines and fullness, her perfect little teeth; it was a smile that he knew then and there could cut his will to ribbons. He also became aware during that mission briefing that paying her, quietly, such attention in regard to his humorous intentions, should have told him something about the admiration, the fascination, the desire that Carol had, presumably without realizing it, let

loose inside of him.

But as he'd continued his routine with each new snippet of information his Intel friend Earthside brought to his attention, on their slow duty as well as off-hours in the ship's gym, practicing his punches, or the so-called "Not Just For Officers' Club" (all welcome), he'd noticed that Carol Marcus' pleasant, polite smile had vanished; those shakes of her head, less fondly agreeable and more mildly irritated and then, at last, she seemed genuinely and personally affronted.

So when they'd dropped from warp at the outermost rim of the Parnassus system, proceeding to their destination planet at sub-light, he'd stopped with the rolling comic remarks which, by that time, had him presuming he'd be treated as no less than a god on arrival. Most of the bridge crew were on their second wind by that point and genuinely laughing along with his remarks but he made a small show of getting "serious" despite the relative lightness of the assignment in terms of his involvement; it was, after all, Ambassador Fox's show.

There was only one of his Officers, working hard as always, above and beyond the call, at her Armaments Sciences station off to the far right of his Captain's chair, whom he decided would be the sole recipient of his tomfoolery. After all, once they'd arrived, her department and expertise, hell, Carol Marcus herself, would have nothing of importance to do for at least some seventy-seven hours, ship's time.

He'd walked the upper semi-circle of the command deck, stopping briefly at each station - - with the exception of Spock's; his Exec had raised an eyebrow towards Uhura only to receive her shrug as to the Captain's unusual obtrusiveness - - and he had asked for brief status reports occasionally pointing out the absolute tiniest of questionable readouts on their boards with good natured camaraderie. Pulling away from a close look at Uhura's comm "chatter" readout and its continual flurry of colored smears and quick-moving lines, he winked at Nyota, saying simply, "Very good, Lieutenant."

"Captain, excuse my curiosity," she replied quietly but sharply, "but what the hell are you up to?" He couldn't hide his smile as he said, sotto voce,

"Watch this. I'm gonna get a laugh out of her yet."

He finally had passed Lieutenant Marcus, giving her station the barest, passing glance and giving her a nod with a tight-lipped smile, which she returned with a small nod of her own, saying simply, "All systems nominal, Captain."

He stopped and stepped back by her post.

"Lieutenant Marcus, you hear the latest from Parnassus Two - - or, specifically, the Princess herself?"

She gave him a short glance up from her field monitor, replying simply, "I can't say that I have, sir. But then, I'm not one, really, for that kind of - -"

A group of bright red circular graphics floating across her monitor abruptly linked together and, with a soft but insistent beeping, turned green. "Excuse me, Captain - -," she said shortly, flicking a switch by her intercom relay. "Ensign Nika, check your numbers on tube two's charger - - Wait a minute, I'll be right down."

She stood and Jim had stepped back for her to pass toward the 'lift but, instead, she turned to him asked, "You were saying, Captain? About news from Parnassus, was it?"

"Yeah, uh," he answered, "But you clearly have some work you want to attend t - -"

She waved him off lightly. "It's no emergency - - believe me."

He gave her a sidelong look that asked for an explanation.

"Ensign Nika's very smart but very green. If he thinks I'm coming down there to show him what's what, my guess is - -"

Jim smiled a little and nodded.

"When you arrive in the Weapons Bay, Ensign Nika will proudly show you not only that he solved the problem with torpedo tube two, once he actually thought about it, but will also be eager to show you just how he did it."

"I grew up around ship Captains and various C.O.'s. It proved a good education in terms of the tricks, the psychological sleights of hand, when it comes to getting the best out of those in your charge. The trick I just used, for instance? It's one I've noticed you are particularly skillful with - - "

"Trickery? Me, Lieutenant? I'm as straight a shooter as you're going to find out here."

She cocked her head and carefully asked, "So... Parnassus?"

"Princess Nisi wants to marry me," he answered, almost in a blurt.

"Come again?"

Jim shook his head, having trouble fighting back his cocksure smile, saying. "Something that useless ambassador, Fox, told me. Seems he was contacted a few hours ago by the something - - oh, get this, the Grand Vizier of the Court, personal spiritual advisor to this Princess. Apparently the timing of all this, and the non-negotiable choice of Enterprise to be the Federation's... standard bearer, I guess, uh, it's not a coincidence that it's all happening the week of the Princess' "bach-t-brie," her coming of age, when all lady sovereigns of Parnassus choose a husband."

Carol's brow had contracted and, after a quick moment of thought, she went to say something - - and he'd jumped to maintain his dominance of the floor, adding lightly before she could speak, "What d'ya think, Doctor Marcus? Prince Jim - - it's got a ring to it, don't you think? I'd have authority over a whole planet, not just one ship. Just think of the power I'd get to abuse." He chuckled a bit, clearly an invitation for her to join in.

Carol hadn't cracked even the smallest smile. Instead, with entirely believable seriousness and sincerity, she observed, "Hmm. I suppose. But, I didn't think you were a marrying man."

"Yeah? Well ,what kind of man do you think I am then?"

"Oh, I don't know - - a girl in every port? Love 'em and leave 'em? According to Lieutenant Uhura, at any rate."

Jim shot a quick look at the comm station, only to find both Nyota and, standing beside her, Mr. Spock - - staring back at him with decidedly unimpressed expressions. Particularly, and uncharacteristically, Spock. Turning back to Carol, she'd slipped around him, and was at the 'lift as its doors opened.

"Hey," he said to her, "I thought we'd gotten past my so-called "reputation." You remember, with the joke you played on me in that shuttle, telling me to "turn around"."

"Captain, I'm taken aback. I thought you were aware."

"Aware? Always," he replied, and after a slight hesitation, added, "Uh, of what?"

"That I have no sense of humor. Now if you'll excuse me, I've given Ensign Nika just enough time to make me proud."

Waiting in the large transporter room, Jim had decided to be fully understanding, at least as much as possible, if Lieutenant Marcus had found some half-way believable reason in her department not to join the Parnassus landing party despite being specifically included in their formal invitation. He was still a little prickly, flummoxed, even, by the fact that a man as reputedly charming as himself, a man genuinely interested in the lives and thoughts of those around him, could make such an ass out of himself with a smart, generally pleasant and hardworking officer, and woman, like Dr. Carol Marcus.

He'd glanced around the transporter platform and, finding everyone in place, with all their gear stowed appropriately - - and ambassador Fox checking the chrono-tatt on his right wrist for the third time in the past two minutes - - Jim had looked forward to the wide alcove behind a data glasswall and the young Ops Ensign on duty there.

"All right, Ms. Stanfield, I think I've kept my admirer waiting long enough," he said with a smile, catching McCoy roll his eyes.

"Very good, sir," Stanfield replied. "Stand by."

As the Ops Ensign worked the forward panel, adjusting the energy cycle for the size of the landing party, the control room doors opened behind her and Carol Marcus entered at a confident clip. Noticing her arrival, Jim gestured that she join them and Carol made her way around the glass partition, moving with purpose to the platform.

"Nice of you to join us, Lieutenant," he said, with what he hoped would be taken, as intended, as mock officiousness.

"My apologies, Captain," she said, sparing him a quick look as she sprang up the platform's steps and took up one of the remaining pads, directly to his left and a shade behind. "I assure you, it won't happen again."

"Lieutenant, uh, I was only jok- - I'm not as seri... us as you...," he faltered, at a loss. "You don't, uh, have to be... so..."

"Captain?" she asked, utterly sincere and earnest.

"Ready?", he asked, gesturing loosely at the party around him, largely as a courtesy to the ambassador, then turned back to Stanfield. "Ensign? Energize."

As the Ensign took a final moment to confirm adjustments to the re-materialization co- ordinates, accounting for the nearly imperceptible changes in the ship's orbital relation to the surface target - - which took about three seconds - - Carol Marcus leaned forward and mentioned to her Captain, sotto voce but theatrically enough that the nearest others, Bones and Uhura, could clearly hear her, "Your fly is open."

Jim reacted immediately, almost a Pavlovian response, as men throughout time had done; he looked down and moved a hand crotchward - - and in less than a fraction of a second, he remembered the obvious - - Starfleet uniforms no longer had zippers. The waist and "fly" of men's duty and dress uniforms sealed themselves according to body temperature and by the actual physical motions of getting dressed. And in the remaining tiniest fraction of a fraction of a second, as the landing party was engulfed in streaming, strobing flares of off-white, golden-blue light, he managed a quick look back over his shoulder and was certain he saw Carol Marcus' rose-red lips and perfect white teeth as she failed to hide her hint of a smile.

It was a little more than three months later, after Azetbur and the near-disaster the Enterprise crew had fought like hell to prevent at Memory Delta, on the last night of their first time spent together, three days and three very full nights, thirty-two hours each, which, they admitted to one another later, had and hadn't taken either of them by surprise, in their tiny, secret hideaway of a room in the Old Earth-style hotel off the main street - - the Xunazcali Flamingo - - on the oceanic planet, Xunan, where he'd taken his people for unauthorized but much-needed leave, that he'd finally asked her about Parnassus.

He asked Carol if she'd intended the consequences of her little joke, if she knew in advance that they'd beam down in the Princess' private courtyard, Jim at the front of the landing party and materializing with his right hand moving as if to grab his crotch. The Princess Nisi had been standing at the fore of her assembled handmaidens and advisors and the clutch of old ladies who were the ruler's chaperones. And when the Princess saw the Starfleet legend making what seemed clearly an obscene gesture, she gasped and, gathering her gown and cape, ran back to the palace, her handmaidens and the doddery ancient chaperones hurrying to protect her.

The Grand Vizier had immediately forbid the Enterprise Captain from remaining within the Princess' eyeshot, and he was escorted , alone, by a phalanx of heavily armed robot guards to a nearby open field, and what had been, essentially, less a mission than a welcoming formality and celebration became, as the Princess Nisi consulted with those around her, deciding their future with the Federation, an "emergency situation."

And it just grew worse.

Quickly.

The planetary holo'news nets had been included for the Enterprise crew's arrival and Jim's meaningless gesture and Her Royalty's reaction were virtually played all over Parnassus Two endlessly, on a loop, with a policys pundit coming up with a phrase to describe the debacle; the "Enterprise Incident." The name caught on and became synonymous with the name James T. Kirk all across the old-fashioned, technically advanced planet - - as were a few less neutral, more obscene turns of phrase.

It had only been Carol Marcus' quick thinking and Nyota Uhura's deft skill at improvising around an alien culture's protocols that salvaged the situation. They'd convinced the Princess' chaperones for some time alone with the Princess to offer some guidance in her decision about joining the Federation and, after several hours of light good humor that, with the complete consumption of a small ceremonial keg of luravevisso (which Carol later described to her Captain as "the Parnassusian equivalent of vodka - - very, very... very strong vodka. With a not entirely unpleasant sprinkling of a local herb which, apparently, acts as a mild, giddy-making sedative. Sir." ), turned into a robust party that spilled out of the Princess' chambers, with Her Royalty declaring for advisors, and the holo'nets, that Parnassus was thrilled to be now part of the Federation.

Jim was released and put in a quick appearance at the festivities, returning quickly to the ship, with a confused and intoxicated Ambassador Fox, where, the following morning, hung-over Lieutenants Uhura and Marcus explained at the assignment debriefing what they could remember of how they'd caused the Princess' accommodation. They had told the young lady, Nisi, that all that she'd read about Captain Kirk and his explorations and battles fought, commanding the crew of his starship were basically true. That, as a leader, James T. Kirk was uniquely qualified to represent the best of Starfleet and of what the Federation offered its member worlds; but, despite the particulars of a specific death-defying event, he is also a mortal and as such, he's flawed, does things he may later regret, or things that are entirely inadvertent.

"We told the Princess, you're just a human being, sir," Uhura concluded.

"And, thankfully, she bought it," Carol added.

Jim had accepted their report with good humor and an "all's well that ends well." But as the group of a half dozen officers filed out of the briefing room, he had said, in passing to Carol, whom he realized had lingered a little unnecessarily at the table long enough to walk out close by him, "I guess I won't get be to be a Prince after all."

"Wow. There really is a first time for everything," she replied, shaking her head, not resisting the open smile.

"What do you mean?"

"You - - underestimating yourself, Captain Kirk."

When, in their hotel hideaway on Xunan a little more than a few month's later, he'd asked her about her little joke, she'd just given him a perplexed look then smiled with realization, saying, "Oh, yes. Parnassus Two... Right...That was funny."

And she left it at that, which he pushed no further, taken with that smile, its exquisitely etched lines and perfect white teeth. And then he'd jumped her in their small single hotel room bed to her delighted laughter...

He looked at her, saw that she, too, was now staring at the field of stars displayed by the skylight above their bed in the VIP suite.

"I bet you know every one of them. At a mere glance," she said.

"And you don't?" He smiled a little at her false modesty.

"I don't know that one."

"Which one?"

"That one there," she specified, raising a silken arm, pointing off to their near right. "The one that's moving?"

"You ready to be really impressed?" And before she could even begin to assemble what he knew would be one of her knowing, cuttingly cool, deadpan sarcasms, he went on with a full measure of boast, "That, my dear, is none other than the U.S.S. Uijeongbu, moving at sub-light, to rendezvous with the Excalibur at the edge of this solar system. Whereupon they will remain on point, awaiting word from the Enterprise, currently under the always reliable care-taking of Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, who has orders to join them and take charge of this defense initiative along our boundary with the Klingon Empire that you, Mr. Spock and Ensign Chekov devised, presenting it for the record, to field Fleet Captains and Commanders, coded Alpha and Omega teams, and which, in a few hours, I'll be going through the formality of dotting the t's and crossing i's with Admirals Parker, Harmon and Ngyuen for their already off-the-record endorsement."

He looked at her with an only slightly exaggerated sense of self-satisfaction which she returned with a seemingly impressed twisting of her lips in appreciation.

"Very good. You may make for a half-decent starship C.O. yet, James Tiberius. Now tell me, who was the fresh-from-the-Academy, wet-behind-the-ears ensign that you intimidated and scared half to death up in traffic control to get the I.D. on the one vessel that would be this close, within view of this suite right about now?"

He looked at her with a slightly put-on and exaggerated aggrieved frown."Her name was Allie. She's originally from Frederick, Maryland, but grew up in McCabe on Mars and she was very..." He paused and completed his thought with care. "Agreeable."

"I'm sure," Carol replied, turning and kissing him lightly on the lips, then, hiding her amusement, shifting over just a bit with every intention of catching at least a couple of hours of sleep.

to be continued...

(End - Chapter 1, Part 1; Chapter 1 (of 5) to be concluded in Part 2, in which Carol deals with a voice inside her head)