Author Notes: This is a sequel to The Day His Life Changed Forever (Kirk Family Chronicles). If you haven't read that story, start there or you may not get everything referenced here. This story takes place roughly one week after the Jedi have been destroyed and the Enterprise is being deployed to maintain order at the Klingon-Romulan-Federation peace treaty at Deneva. Kate also gets to meet Admiral Pike in this story. Please read and review. I try to add anything suggested in upcoming chapters. Technical advice welcome because Star Wars tech is definitely more my expertise.

CH 1 New Destinations

BRIDGE

Kirk pulls at the neck of his dress uniform. He hates official meetings from Star Fleet. He is a zillion miles from the actual meeting but still regulations have to been followed even deep in the Neutral Zone. He gives a quick nod to his First Officer, straightens his uniform, and activates the incoming transmission.

"Good morning Captain Kirk. Commander Spock." Admiral Archer acknowledges.

"Sir." They both reply in unison.

Archer is very concise and starts the briefing immediately. "The Enterprise is being re-assigned to Deneva for the first Federation-Klingon-Romulan Peace Conference. This conference maybe the only way to stop a full out war with the Klingons which the Federation is ill prepared for. Those Klingon bastards have been taking pot shots at every Federation vessel without impunity, discrediting our fleet, and making us look like the wimps of the playground. With the recent Nero event we are keeping our eyes on the Romulans as well. As the Federation flagship you will be the silent teeth providing security for all parties involved supported by several other Constitution class vessels. There is a rumor that Section 31 operatives will be on hand. The conference will take place four days from now so depart the Neutral Zone and get your ass to Deneva ASAP. There is a lot riding on this Jim. I need your people to be at their best."

"The Enterprise will not disappoint you sir." Kirk responds confidently.

"How is the Jedi situation progressing?" Admiral Pike asks from Archer's right.

"Stable. We have not had further contact with the Jedi at this time." Spock replies.

Admiral Archer looks slightly relieved. "You can tell me all about your exploits later. Watch your ass, son." Kirk immediately reads these informal comments and the prior mention of Section 31 as Archer's way of telling him they need to talk face to face. "See you in three days Captain. Commander. Archer out."

As Kirk reaches forward to end the transmission, Pike requests a word. Spock leaves to inform Sulu of the course change and assume control of the bridge. Pike waits until the room clears before beginning. "So how's fatherhood going son?" Pike asks laughing and Jim clearly knows this conversation is personal not professional. Pike has been his mentor since starting Star Fleet and as close to a father as he could have.

"Kicking my ass Sir." He says with a laugh. "She is so much like Lauren it makes me crazy."

"I heard that she resembles the Kirk side far more than the Shan side." Pike says pretending to be serious.

"That she does sir that she does." Kirk says in a sing songy joking voice. "But apparently you didn't know the Shan side that well than either. Combination has proved to be deadly."

"Karma's a bitch ain't she." Pike laughs at the thought of Kirk getting back tenfold what he gave at that age. "On a more serious note, did Kate have any information on Lauren's whereabouts?" Pike questions. He knew that Jim secretly still loved his wife and that is probably why he never moved on after she left.

"No." Jim says tugging at his collar clearly uncomfortable with this topic. Pike reads the Captain's body language and decides to back off for now. There will be plenty of time to talk at the conference.

"I look forward to meeting her. Star Fleet is a buzz with the newest edition to the family. Kate must be extraordinary for her reputation to precede her after only a few weeks in this galaxy. The prior genius level repeat offender from the Kirk family took 18 years to get on Star Fleet's radar." He says with a smile.

Kirk laughs at this comment and bows his head remembering that day with Pike at the Shipyard Bar. "Kate has a much more thorough parole officer than I did Sir. We are working on genius level student at the moment."

"Good luck with that." Pike says not believing a word. "She must really be giving him a run for his money." Pike thinks. "Can't wait to meet her. Pike out."

Kirk exhales loudly and slumps in his chair. It has been a long day. It's time to get back to work and leave this Jedi shit behind him. He starts toward the turbo shaft to change into his regular uniform but not before unbuttoning his collar.

SMUGGLER'S RUN

The kids were all sitting around Smugglers Run after school. They had decided to name it that after Kate announced that "the place" was a lame name. The tossed around several options like "Safe Zone Six", "Rec Dec Zero", and "Hidden Hidey Hole" but ultimately agreed on Kate's suggestion of "Smuggler's Run." Kate had regaled the group with stories about a similar place she visited in her galaxy with the same name. She said it was a secret base in an asteroid field where smugglers had carved out caverns from the inside of the asteroids and hid their loot in there. The name did resemble their place because it was filled with stolen items like furniture, replicators, and other such discarded stuff from the Enterprise. John wasn't sure is he believed her but for a girl she was fascinating and a little scary at times. She could be all girly, cute and slightly annoying with Joanna and Erika; however, she could almost out run him, take a hit in self defense class from Ronin, and could swear like a sailor if the occasion called for it. He was never interested in Erika, Joanna, or girls in general but Kate was different.

All of a sudden a song comes blaring out of Kate's comm unit. It is definitely one of Kirk's old twentieth century things from the beat. "Does this thing work like a radio also?" Kate asks referring to the music pouring from it. The group starts to laugh at her.

"No silly. You have to tap it to get it to connect to your dad." Erika says

Kate stares at her quizzically for a minute before asking, "How do you know it's Kirk?"

"See we were using clips of music to let each other know we needed to see them. Everyone picked a song and it was like a code , you know, to let us know who was calling." Cameron explains. "The parental units caught on and tried to be cool like us." He says doing air quotes around the word cool.

"Dude they suck at it that." Ronin comments about the cool thing. "Now we each have a song to let us know THEY want us for some reason. Lame asses." Ronin says.

The first few beats of the song come on again and Kate taps the device to connect to Kirk. His voice comes through clear and strong on her comm unit. "Kate. You need to get back to our quarters now." He says flatly.

"Fine." She says exhaling deeply. These comm units are worse than comlinks. At least comlinks you can shut off and pretend not to know you got a call. Unless your comm unit was broken, there wasn't a place on the ship someone couldn't reach you. "Hey what was that song by the way?" Kate asks.

"Blondie. One way or another. Now hurry up okay. Kirk out."

The kids get quiet for a minute. Kate is always in trouble for one thing or another and recently has been adding to their share of comm calls to come home immediately. They try to keep her in line but some of the stuff she wants to do sounds like so much fun before they actually do the deed. "Sounds ominous." Erika replies.

"Yeah whatever." Kate says getting up from the pillows she was sitting on. She tries to figure out what he could possibly want. She has not seen him since breakfast and that went okay she thought. "I'll be back in 30."

John nods his head at her comm unit. "Let's check out his song first," he says scanning the Galactic Computer Network or GCN as everyone calls it. He finds the songs and brings it up. The snappy little tune belays a deeper message. The first lyric pisses her off but does bring out an unintended laugh as it starts with "One way or another I'm gonna find ya. I'm gonna getch getch getcha."

"Is she saying getcha or catcha ya?" Kate says laughing. She is so annoyed but can't help but to laugh. She laughs a lot as a defense mechanism to hide her feelings. This has gotten her into more trouble but she can't seem to stop it in the moment.

"He's trying to be funny." Joanna giggles.

"Dude I don't know about funny but he is definitely letting you know not to fuck up." Ronin laughs annoying Kate more.

"Shut up. I want to hear the rest. This is kinda funny Kate. It's like a secret message. My dad uses Georgia on my mind and not some creep stalker song." Joanna says and everyone burst in to laughter.

Kate makes an overly pronounced frown and rolls her eyes. "Yeah real fuckin funny until it's YOUR dad." She says not realizing she used the 'D' word. She still calls him Kirk unless she forgets to be an asshole.

"Shut up." John says listening to the song laughing. "Listen," he says backing up the song to a part where the singer comments 'and if the lights are all out. I'll follow your bus downtown. See whose hangin' out.' This causes everyone to roll on the ground laughing making Kate exhale and raise her eyebrows.

"He's is gonna be UP YOUR ASS." John laughs. "Wouldn't sneak out when he is on gamma shift that's for sure if I were you." He howls.

"This is not fucking funny." Kate says trying to act pissed but laughing during each word. "I'm outta here." She says walking out leaving everyone laughing hysterically. She wants to be pissed but keeps letting little chuckles come out when she thinks about it. She had to come up with a kick ass song for him. It'll take time but it has to be good. He can't one up her. She hits the keypad to their quarters and sees Kirk sitting at his desk not looking thrilled. "Jesus Fucking Christ what now." She thinks but has learned to keep some things to herself around him at this point. She decides to try levity to feel him out. Sometimes he's just pissy about work and not her. "Really? A stalker song to let me know you need me." She says flopping on the couch and flinging her leg over the side. "Joanna's got Georgia on my mind."

"A warning that nothing gets by me on my ship." He says holding up her PADD with her last history term paper on it.

"Fuck." She says to herself and throws her head back on the couch with a groan. "He really reads all 20 pages from 6 kids in one night on top of all his other duties." Kate says staring at the ceiling.

Kirk lets out a little snicker realizing how wrong she pegged Spock. "Spock is very thorough in all his tasks. You seriously thought that only 5 pages in when you start with" he scans to page six of her essay "filler filler filler. Let this just be done with this. What should I do over the weekend? Not this paper. Ha. Ha. Maybe watch a movie.'" He reads directly from her term paper. Kirk looks at her exasperatively. He continues reading to make his point, "I should be trying to beat John at sprints next week. No more holding back. Ronin always leads with his left when he tries to leg swipe. I can so take both girls out at once." He reads it like it is a journal entry. "And this goes on until page 18 where you finish up with and I quote 'I so gotta get a pair of sneakers like Erika except in blue. Pink is definitely not my color.'" He lays the PADD on the desk in front of him. "Did ya think he wouldn't catch it?" Kirk asks surprised. He thinks this is actually funny. It was something he would have attempted at her age but never thought about it.

"I used quotes and everything." She defends her work with a slight chuckle. "I think I even used a few colons for bonus points. It ran through spell and grammar check fine."

He sees her let out the stifled laugh and realizes he needs to take action. "You think this is funny?" He says in a joking tone but with a serious face. Kate can't wipe the smile off her face even though he sees her trying desperately to. "Well you can redo this and provide a second essay of superior quality on How the Coalition of Planets Treaty differs from the Charter of the United Federation of Planets?" He says clapping his hands together and laying them on his desk in a very Captain like tone.

This takes all the levity out of Kate and she sits up pissed on the couch. "That's gonna take all weekend?" She whines and sees she is going to get no pity from Kirk. "Fine I'll do the other 12 pages before Monday." She acquiesces.

"And the How the Coalition of Planets Treaty differs from the Charter of the United Federation of Planets essay after that." She starts to whine again but his scowl quickly shuts her up. She has spent an entire week with him and really doesn't want to do it again so soon. "I'd start now." He suggests and picks up his PADD to start doing the paperwork that has accumulated all week.

"This is ridiculous." She huffs grabbing the PADD from his desk and walking into her room. "Han can't come too fucking soon." She thinks as she gets started. From the other room that damn Blondie song comes pouring through the quarter's speakers and she knows he's laughing.

"That's not funny." She screams and hears him snicker at his desk

About three hours later John and Ronin came to her door. "Come." Kirk says and looks up to see the two boys standing in the doorway. "Kate you have guests. Five minutes and then back to work." He says and turns back to his PADD.

Kate comes out of her room and rolls her eyes when she sees John and Ronin. She takes both their arms and drags them into the hall for privacy. "Dude. Where did you go? We waited like forever." Ronin says leaning up against the wall. Kate shoves her hands in her pockets and rolls her feet so she is standing on the sides of her shoes. "You got caught with that history paper didn't ya?" Ronin says and Kate rolls her eyes and gives him a smirk.

"Told ya to just do it." John says sighing and leans against the other wall. "I knew you'd get caught."

Kate blows a loose strand of hair out of her eyes and says, "Whatever. It was worth a chance but now I am fucked all weekend." She frowns at the two boys.

"Kate. Finish it up out there." Kirk yells from inside their quarters.

"I gotta go. I am almost done with the first one but Kirk says I now have to so some compare and contrast thing about the Coalition of Planets vs. the Federation." She pulls her hands out of her pockets and ties her hair into a loose ponytail. "I'll just do an all nighter when he goes to bed and be done by morning. He didn't say I was grounded or anything. Just that I had to get them both done by Monday." Kate turns to get ready to go back in.

John grabs her arm and says, "Just don't fuck up next week okay. We are arriving on Deneva and it is supposed to be awesome. You won't want to be stuck here while we are down there. I don't want you to." He amends his first statement

Kate face goes blank when she hears John. "Why are we leaving the Neural Zone? Han is coming. We can't go." She screams in her head but is so shocked she can't say a word at the moment.

"Now Katherine." Kirk yells one more time. His voice is getting a bit angrier through the door but Kate's ears are ringing.

"You better go in. Remember play it cool okay Kate." John says and activates the keypad opening her door. "You alright?" He asks.

Kate waves a hand absently at him and mutters, "Yeah. See ya tomorrow." She enters their quarters and sits on the couch trying to process the information. "I can't be leaving. Han will never find me. What the hell are you doing Kirk?" She thinks with all the color draining from her face.

"Kate, honey you alright." Jim sees his daughter and instantly is concerned. She has a glazed look to her eyes and has no color. Her breathing is rapid but shallow. "Katie bug." He gets up from his desk and crosses the room. He kneels in front of her snapping his fingers and calls her name again. When she doesn't respond Kirk taps his comm unit. "Kirk to McCoy. I need you immediately in my quarters. Something is wrong with Kate."

"On my way." Bones says and immediately leaves Sick Bay.

Kirk reaches out to touch her and she is cold. Kirk begins to rub her shoulders and keeps calling her name. She blinks several times and barely whispers, "I can't go."

He sees that she is slowly coming out of whatever is wrong with her and rubs her arms a little more briskly. "What honey? I didn't hear you." He takes one of her hands in his realizes it's cold and clammy. He begins to rub it quickly trying to warm it up. "Kate honey, I don't know what your talking about." Kirk says as Bones comes in the door.

Bones walks up to Kate and kneels down by Jim. "Sweetheart what is wrong?" Bones says running a tricorder over her.

Kirk stares a Bones waiting for the results but gives him the events causing this issue. "She was outside talking to Ronin and John and was fine. Then she came in and sat on the couch. She looks like she is in shock and can't respond verbally to me."

"Decreased blood pressure, rapid pulse, decreased respiration, confusion. These are all symptoms of shock Jim. What did those boys say to her?"

"I don't know." Kirk snaps back getting defensive because he is helpless right now.

Kate realizes that Bones is here and tries to snap out of her shock. She can't let them know something is wrong so she puts on a game face and lies. "I just got dizzy and all. I'm fine." She tries to stand but her legs are a bit wobbly. She has to focus on Kirk and Bones before they drag her ass to Sick Bay but all she can think is "Why would you do this Kirk? Zala Tsu was right. You are trying to get rid of me. Why are we going to a planet when we should be waiting for Luke or Han. It can't be more than a few more days. Why would you lie to me Kirk." She feels Kirk lift her up and forces herself to bury everything she is feeling and act normal. "I don't want to go to Sick Bay." She says wiggling out of Kirk's arms but holding on to him for balance. "Look you can be here in like two seconds so can I just go lay down and call if I don't feel better?"

They two men look at each other and Bones nods to Kirk saying, "Only if you go lay down for awhile."

Kirk helps her to her room and she pretends to go to sleep. She knows the two men are talking about her right now in the other room but she can only concentrate on John saying they would be on a new planet in three day. How was she ever going to keep Kirk right here.

Wookiepedia used as reference.