Disclaimer: In this unfortunate universe, Paramount owns Star Trek.

Author's note: This is a companion piece to Absolute Horizon. Post-epilogue.

Steff, I would not dare call this a present as in something you'd like to have, but I tentatively hope that you will like it anyway.

Acknowledgements: Thank you, Cuppy, for terrific beta! All remaining grammar quirks are mine.

Codes: Sc, K General

Summary: Some women change men like outfits. Some ships do the same.

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MANEATER

They were doing it again.

Scott sighed to himself and walked away towards the aft control station. He sat down at the console and brought up the impulse engines' schematics on the viewer. Behind him, Donahue continued to rant about the comparative advantages of the new design. He was juggling the eight-syllable terms with obvious gusto and a lot of input from the other two. They were discussing—if one could call that a discussion—every aspect of the refit in detail, making a lot of references to previous and alternative versions, as if trying to impress each other with the depth of their knowledge.

They had every right to be proud of their technical expertise, of course. After all, they were Starfleet's finest engineers. Scott had hand-picked them himself, and he knew better than anyone that they were qualified and able. There was a job that needed to be done, and they were getting it done. In the end, it was all that counted. And if they liked to rant about their own superior intellect, it had no effect on the work schedule.

So he let them rant.

They belonged to the new generation of Starfleet engineers. Better screened, better educated, and apparently not at all willing to stay in the shadow of command officers. The awards and acknowledgements were as frequent a topic of their conversation as warp drive or plasma conduits. They were in constant competition to be noticed and distinguished for their work.

This was something Scott couldn't quite fathom. When he was their age, the sense of speechless awe at being allowed to work in the Constitution class starship's engine room was acknowledgement enough. The indescribable pride he took when seeing his handiwork in action was a reward beyond price. What did a medal that Starfleet Command could have granted him matter, in comparison to seeing his ship exceed the expectations of yet another Klingon commander? The satisfaction he felt upon having wiped the deck with them yet again was something no admiral could pin to his chest.

There was no diploma to hang on the wall, which could have meant as much to him as the ability to make an instant evaluation of how much longer the engines would be able to pull them through. There was no substitute for being able to repair those complex systems in space, with no spare parts and no time. There was no award in the universe that could have made his chest swell in pride and love at the sense of complete unity with his ship as they roamed among the stars together.

It wasn't that he was irritated or annoyed at them, not at all. If anything, he found those conversations bemusing. But he had never had any wish to take part in them, and after asking him to tell about his accomplishments out of pure courtesy several times and being rebuffed, they had left him alone. That suited Scott just fine.

He did not hear the door opening. It was Donahue's voice that caught mid-word that alerted him to a foreign presence. There was a sound of hurried motion, signifying three men coming hastily to attention. Scott turned around slowly to look at the reason. He did not come to attention, though he did stand up.

James Kirk was perhaps the most unlikely visitor who could have turned up at the orbital shipyard in the middle of the night. Supervising the refit of old starships fell nowhere near his responsibilities as Chief of Operations. He had never, to the best of Scott's knowledge, even visited the docks since their return to Earth. In all this time, the Scotsman had only seen him in passing once or twice in the corridors of Headquarters. What brought him here now, almost a year later, was by no means clear.

The Admiral did not smile, looking at the three men standing bolt upright and practically ringing with tension. He barely nodded at them. The new uniform, uncomfortable and bleak, made him appear even more intimidating than the reputation he carried wrapped around him like a gloomy cloak. Officially, he was called the most efficient Chief of Operations Starfleet had ever had. Behind his back, he was referred to as the most ruthless, unforgiving and demanding admiral on the board.

It was obvious that Kirk's sudden appearance had made quite an impression on his team, but Scott himself did not feel his pulse quicken. There was no sense of emergency emanating from Kirk. Scott watched tranquilly as his former commanding officer made his way towards him through the silent room.

"Mr. Scott."

There was a time when such an intense scrutinizing stare would have made him squirm and look away. At the moment, Scott was looking the Admiral in the eye calmly, feeling absolutely nothing, not even mild curiosity. His tone was flat when he spoke.

"Admiral."

It was Kirk who lowered his gaze after a while.

"Walk with me, Scotty."

He turned around and led the way, and Scott followed, without glancing at his spellbound team.

They walked into the narrow, dark gangway, which stretched from one end of the gigantic shipyard to another, right under its dome. Two men could not walk here side by side. Not that there was any traffic here in the heights, most certainly not at this hour. The passageway was engulfed by a forcefield, creating an illusion of walking right through space.

Below them, a ship was held captive, secured firmly by the docking clamps. The gangway was directly above her saucer section, which was at the moment being covered with new hull plating. The middle part was done, and the robots were now working closer to the sides. Where the designation number would normally appear, there was only a freshly-painted, virginally-white smooth surface.

Kirk stopped, putting his hands on the railing. Scott came to a halt beside him. Both looked down. They stood in silence for several long minutes, watching the small robot ships circling around the huge immobile form, like a swarm of flies around a resting lion.

Lioness.

Kirk frowned slightly, but otherwise his stricken face remained unchanged. Scott thought he could hear the unvoiced sigh.

"Ye never once came to see her."

There was no bite or reproach in Scott's remark, and no question, either. Only a statement of fact.

"No," Kirk said. "I didn't."

His voice was even, impassively tense, but not colored with joy or regret. He stared down at his former ship fixedly. This was not a happy reunion of old friends.

Do ye remember, Scott wanted to ask him, the day ye made me do a cold restart? Or when ye ordered us to extend our shields around a rogue ship, and it burnt out all our dilithium crystals? When we were thrown back in time, and I just knew that if the black hole dinna kill our engines flat, the slingshot run around the sun most certainly would? The day I found a bomb in the reaction chamber? Do ye remember every time ye demanded warp nine?

He could have named every abuse Kirk had ever made of her. Every single one. He wasn't angry because of them. Then, perhaps. But not now.

Scott knew a dead man when he saw one. He did not particularly enjoy the sight. Quite probably for that reason, he had only looked in the mirror when he absolutely had to now. For that reason, he did not want to look at Kirk.

She was his ship. For sixteen years, she had been his ship. And now she belonged to someone else, regardless of the fact that he was still working in her Engine Room.

He worked there every day, for twelve to sixteen hours, but he never stayed the night, like some of his colleagues. He had always returned to Starfleet residence hotel in San Francisco, and sometimes he had even gone home to Aberdeen. But he never stayed aboard anymore.

She used to talk to him. From the moment he had first set foot on board, maybe even before then, when he saw her docked at the Jupiter Station and she whispered her tantalizing greeting, his heart was captured. She lured him in, with her insidious siren's voice, and made a pledge to him.

Heart for heart.

She was built by man, and that gave them the arrogance to believe she belonged to man. April's ship, they used to call her. Pike's ship. Kirk's ship. But nothing could have been further from the truth.

She belonged to no man.

They belonged to her for as long as she wanted them, and she was a demanding and jealous lover. She took them, with everything they possessed, and she used them, until they had nothing more to give. And they were happy while she was doing it.

It wasn't that she was evil, either. She seduced them to do good things together. They fought for the right cause. They defended the innocent. They solved mysteries. They explored. They helped those in need. Together. She empowered them and she loved them back, while they were doing all those good things. She loved them, devotedly and sincerely.

Just not indefinitely.

Scott used to think he was an exception. They had been together for so long. No one had given her more than he had. Smart lass like her, she had to know it. For him, she was willing to go the extra mile. For him, she gave more power than was declared possible in the specs. He needed her to go faster, and, for him, she did. For him, she had always held together for as long as it took, and then some. She surrounded him with her inimitable feel, and that was the last thing he knew before drifting off to sleep, and the first thing that greeted his wakening consciousness.

It was hard to step on her deck and not sense it.

She turned her back on him without a farewell kiss, but she refused to let him go. She insisted still on his presence in her life. He was the best she had ever had, and she still needed him. She just didn't care for him anymore. Her engines were just the engines. Her conduits—only the conduits. The songs she used to sing him were dead, and the echo tormented him in her empty corridors.

I would have given my life for ye, he thought. I was willing. It would have been no sacrifice. And if she were dying, he would have stayed with her till her very last breath. After everything he had given her, his life was the last possession he had, and he was willing to part with it if she asked him to.

But she didn't want it. She shrugged her exquisite duranium shoulders, yawned and stretched and looked past him, as if he wasn't there. She was not the tiniest bit sympathetic towards her former lover. His years of devoted service meant nothing to her, when she realized that there was nothing left in him to use. True, his knowledge and skill remained intact, but it wasn't knowledge or skill that she hungered for.

She wanted passion. She wanted flames. And after years of burning his heart out for her, all he had to offer were embers.

Not the kind of jewelry any lass would want.

"Will Decker is going to get her," Kirk broke. "They have just made the decision."

Scott raised his eyebrows slightly. It was his only reaction.

He didn't have any particular attitude toward Will Decker. They had been introduced some time ago. Scott had heard him being described as a bright young officer. He didn't care for more details.

He glanced sideways at the Admiral. It was hard on Kirk, too, he could tell. But Kirk was not here, Scott thought. Kirk was on Earth, implementing new protocols and upgrading defenses, talking to politicians and diplomats. Kirk had other things to fill his day with. Matters of strategic importance. Interstellar affairs.

Kirk did not have to be here and help her make herself prettier for another man.

"I heard he's good," Scott said.

Kirk nodded curtly.

"He's the best."

Was that a consolation to him? Scott wondered. Perhaps it should be. It would have been hard, after all, to see her in the hands of someone unworthy. Or even ordinary. Not as hard as it used to be, of course, but still disconcerting.

A hand gripped his shoulder, wrinkling the crusty, rough material of the new uniform, which he hated. Scott didn't turn and didn't say anything. Neither did Kirk. They stood silently for several long seconds, and then the grip tightened, digging into his flesh. Then it was gone.

Kirk was walking away determinedly. His back was straight, jaw line firm, as he marched forward, ramrod stiff, his heels raising a reverberating echo. It was a long walk to the other end of the gangway. Almost a kilometer. The Admiral strode on, without looking back and without looking down.

Scott stood alone for another minute, and then turned to go back the way they came. He was not as profoundly rigid as the Admiral. His walk was the walk of a tired soldier, returning after a lifelong campaign, which had earned him nothing, not even a small place for the final rest.

Below, the magnificent, beautiful ship was stifling a yawn, bathing dozily in the soft, gleaming light of the stars.