"Alright guys, we'll leave it there for now. Next week isn't up yet, so make sure you check Moodle for seminar prep! Andy, don't you dare forget that meeting you booked with Simon, and bring back that sheet music next week. If you don't I'll kill you." Rachel Cochrane called after the departing seminar class, a semi-serious tone to her voice.
"Sure thing Teach." Someone shouted back over their shoulder, Rachel couldn't be sure it had been Andy, but it didn't really matter, she knew he got her message.
Sighing she looked around her classroom. It was a mess. There were music stands and sheet music everywhere, her bin was overflowing with bits of snapped string and useless parts of compositions, most of them hers. To most, having a working environment like this would be unbearable, but for Rachel, she thrived in it. She liked to surround herself with chaos, she felt it bread creativity. And that is what she needed to encourage, the creative streak in her students. To help them gain the edge in the competitive world of professional musicians. Turning to her desk, piled high with paperwork, she collected the things she needed for tonight so she could head home. Hopefully she would manage to get out of the city centre before rush hour, but it was doubtful. Tourist season was in full swing, and that made trying to get anywhere difficult.
She may have made it seem like she knew what she was doing with the class, but in all honesty, she didn't have a clue. She liked to keep things fresh with her students, they never knew what to expect from their eccentric tutor. This week for example, she had them looking at the music Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, comparing two of the most celebrated Jazz musicians of their period. The week before she had introduced them to the wonder that was Orchestral Metal, she was planning a trip to see Nightwish play for the class on the department's budget, to show the students the subtle balance that went into making a full orchestra work well with a heavy guitar and base line. What was the point of working in a University without the perks?
After locking up, she started heading for her car, her eyes taking in the overall appearance of the campus as she moved. Rachel loved this time of year, the trees were blossoming, and the daffodils were in full bloom. It was getting warmer, but there was still that slight sharp nip in the air. Plus the lighter nights were starting to come in, for her there was nothing worse than having to leave work and it be pitch black outside.
She dumped her ridiculously heavy bag in the boot of her 1967 Chevrolet Camero. It still amused her that many of the students in Fresher's week still fawned over her car, not daring to touch the sapphire blue with white detailing paint work. The car had been a gift from her brother when they had come to the conclusion they were not getting home anytime soon, he had completely restored it for her as a surprise on her birthday.
After settling herself in the driver's seat, pulled out her phone and turned it on. There was only one rule that she enforced in her classroom to extremes, no phones. She expected her students to turn their mobiles off in her room, and as sign of good faith, hers was also turned off. As soon as the little thing beeped into life, it rang shrilly telling her she had a voice mail from her brother.
Seeing that worried her. Zac never called, except in emergencies. Although with Zac, running out of milk could be considered an emergency. This must be bad if he's left a voice mail, Rachel thought to herself, as she dialled her inbox.
"Rach, we have a situation. I've detected something, I don't know what it is, but I know it doesn't belong here. Rach, I don't want to get any hopes up but this could be our ticket home! I'll wait until you get home before I say anything more, so hurry up." Came the clearly excited voice of her twin brother over her phone. The message had been left less than five minuets ago.
To anyone else this message would have sounded incredibly unlike Zac and rather cryptic. Most people who had the pleasure on knowing him, found him rude, condescending and generally a bit of a prick. But he was her brother, and she understood him better than anyone else, meaning that she completely understood what he was referring to. The idea of him being right, that there was a chance of them going home made Rachel's heart speed up.
Pulling out of her parking space she left the campus, praying to any deity that would listen that the traffic would be light today, she really needed to get home.
"Sulu, what the hell happened?" Captain James Tiberius Kirk groaned to his pilot, as he pulled himself up off the floor, clutching his head.
"I don't know sir." Sulu replied from his prone position on the floor.
"Ok, priorities. Is anyone injured, if so speak up." Jim addressed the room, no one replied. "Right then, who else is still alive? Chekov?"
"Yes, Sir." Came the familiar voice of Pavel, accompanied by a grunt of pain.
"Good, Bones, you still kicking?"
"I'll be kicking your ass in a minute if we don't find out what's going on!" Bones responded with a disgruntled tone to his voice.
"Of course you will. Spock, you good?" Jim laughed a little to try and diffuse the tension, whilst praying that Bones was only joking.
"I am well Captain." Spock replied, formal as ever.
"Scotty?" Jim called out, hoping the intercom system was still working on board the large shuttle.
"Aye Capt'n?" Came the crackled response over the speakers.
"At least you're still alive. What the hell is going on?" Jim demanded as he tried to get a look around the main cabin of the shuttle, the lack of light made this reasonably difficult. In a sense Jim was glad, he didn't know if he really wanted to see the potential damage.
"Can ah' get back to you on tha' Capt'n. Am not really sure, but the lights should be coming back on in a mo'."
Just then the lights flickered back on, taking a quick glance around the cabin; Jim noticed that the damage seemed to be minimal. Sighing in relief, Jim then took note of where various crew members were. Everyone appeared to be a little bit shook up from what had just happened, not that he had any idea what that was. They were all sitting up, but were still on the floor, apart from Spock who was fiddling around at one of the stations.
"Captain, it would appear we have returned to Earth." Spock informed him.
"What? That's impossible!" Jim called out, as he got up on shaky legs and stumbled his way over to his first officer. Taking a look at the monitor, Jim took note of what it was telling him. Spock was right; they were back in the Terran system. "How it this possible?"
"I do not know." Spock responded, seemingly un-phased by everything that appeared to be going on around them. But when he thought about it, Jim wasn't overly surprised. When it came to Spock, the Vulcan was calm about almost everything. The only time Jim had ever seen Spock show anything other than a sense of calmness was when he himself had pushed Spock over the emotional ledge, and action the Jim was not willing to commit again. He could still feel Spock's hand around his neck sometimes, it was unsettling at best.
"Well then Mr Spock, I look forward to you figuring all of this out." Jim announced as he clapped Spock on the back, noticing and smirking at how his First Officer tensed slightly from the contact.
Casting his eyes around the small cabin, Jim was impressed to see his officers getting straight to work. He needed to know what the hell was going on, and the sooner he found out, the sooner he could get to fixing whatever was wrong.
"Keptin?" Chekov called out, drawing Jim's attention away from generally surveying the cabin and his small contingency of people. "I am unable to locate ze Space Dock, and Starfleet command iz not responding to our hails, neither iz ze Mars station or Alpha station."
"What?" Jim asked in a disbelieving voice snapping back into his role as a Starfleet Captain, of the flag ship no less.
"Eet's not zere Keptin. Zere iz nothing. Zey are gone Sir."
Scotty came bustling into the room; he looked flustered and pleased with himself all at the same time.
"Ah, Jim. Av managed to fix the shuttle, but she won' last long. The sooner we can get her back on the Enterprise the better. When are we gonna rendezvous wit' her?"
"Mr Scott, it would appear that we are no longer in the Gamma quadrant. We appear to have returned to Earth, we are currently in orbit around Earth's moon." Spock commented, he was still trying to figure out how they had managed to travel such a great distance so quickly in such a small craft. "I was under the impression that you had equipped this shuttle with warp capability, yet this has greatly exceeded my expectations."
"That canna be right Mr Spock." Scotty said, the confusion laced in his voice.
"I cannot deny what is fact Mr Scott." Spock said back, still trying to get all the information he could out of the limited science station. If he were on the Enterprise, he would have a full artillery of sensors at his disposal, and he would most likely know exactly what had happened by now, but he was working with limited resources, sans the full power of the ship's computer.
"Captain?" Sulu asked. "What is that?"
He was pointing to a structure that the shuttle was picking up on the short range sensors. It was orbiting the Earth and appeared to be transmitting something back towards the planet. Jim didn't have a clue what it was; he had never seen it there before. But then again, all of the space stations were missing as well.
"I don't know." Jim mumbled to himself more than anyone else. "Put it on screen."
"I believe eet iz a satellite Keptin." Chekov spoke up. "I remember learning about zem in Earth history. Zey were used as a method of communication between ze tventieth and tventy first centuries."
"That still doesn't make any sense Chekov. Why would we have satellites orbiting the planet? They've been obsolete for years." Jim asked. He was still extremely confused about the whole situation. He'd read about satellites, it was on most elementary curriculums, but he had never seen one, not even an image of one. They had all been destroyed at some point or another, most of them by various solar storms.
Spock focused on the readings he was receiving on the apparent satellites. He had noticed them before, but had registered them as 'space junk' that had simply been caught in Earth's orbit. But now he realised they were something completely different.
"Captain." Spock started after a few seconds of complete silence, other than the quite murmuring's of McCoy about how he always got dragged into 'this kind of crap'. "I believe I have found out the reason for the anomalies."
The men gathered around Spock at the station he had been at for the past five minutes. It was displaying an image of a woman speaking, but there was no sound, she was wearing a suit and a stream of information scrolling across the bottom of the screen. He had managed to tap into one of the transmissions that was being sent up to one of the satellites and then cast back down towards the planet.
"What the hell is that supposed to tell us?" Jim demanded.
"Observe the bottom right and corner." Spock stated his voice remaining calm. "It is displaying the date in the Gregorian layout. This is supposedly a live stream. Right now on Earth it is April 27th 2012."
So this is my latest Star Trek 2009 Story. I will admit that this plot line had been bouncing around my head since about February, but having recently watched The Voyage Home and an OS episode from the first season that's name escapes my mind,I was spurred on into finally getting around to writing this.
Either way, reviews would be awesome, but just have people read this would be enough :)
Xoxo
