Chapter 1
...Oh, did I tell you that a government official called me? He wants me to be the captain of an all-disabled starship, called the Ability. He said if I knew anybody to be the first officer that would be great. I said I knew the perfect woman: you! We are going to have so much fun together, exploring the galaxy...
Heather Martinez could read no further. She was too excited. Jumping up from her place at her nicely carved wooden desk, she squealed and whirled around, not caring who heard her. Who would, anyway? She lived alone, with nobody for company, unless you counted her cat, Snickers, as company. She had had Snickers ever since she had moved out of her parents' house, years ago. Being the queen sweet-tooth she was, Heather thought it was only natural to name the cat after her favorite candy bar. At the moment, Snickers watched her curiously from his spot on the bed, his green eyes watching his mistress as she danced around the room. The orange striped cat clashed violently with the royal blue bedspread and pillowcase. Finally, Snickers let out a contented purr and closed his eyes to sleep.
As she spun, Heather crashed into the desk, and grabbed the desk leg to keep herself from falling. The movement shook the desk slightly and the letter fluttered to the floor.
The letter was from Heather's best friend, Kathleen Mararri. Heather and Kathleen had known each other since Heather was twelve, and Kathleen eleven. They had been on the same handicapped baseball team together, and had immediately bonded over the fact that they both had cerebral palsy.
Cerebral palsy is a condition that occurs from some sort of brain damage at birth or soon after. In both Heather and Kathleen's cases, the brain damage occurred from lack of oxygen to the brain at birth, coupled with premature birth. It could cause a wide variety of problems, from bad balance to poor muscle control. It also had a wide range of severity-Heather was considered mild. She walked with one forearm crutch, although she didn't need it. She just found it came in handy for long walks, and if she had to stand for an extended period of time. It also helped her with her balance.
Kathleen was considered moderate to severe. She couldn't walk without the aid of a walker, and she usually used a power wheelchair to get around. Her abilities had improved somewhat since Heather had known her, but the CP would never go away.
Feeling suddenly tired, Heather sank down back into her desk chair, excitement still buzzing through her body. Her foot landed on the abandoned letter and she picked it up. She quickly read through the rest of it. One paragraph in particular caught her eye.
It won't be completely disabled crew, Kat had written. There will be a few able-bodied officers who've grown up around disability and "get it". Such as our communications officer. I was thinking of your sister-if she's interested in the job.
Heather's older sister, Lillian, was a communications genius. She was fluent in about ten languages, and she could squeak by just enough to be understood on about five others. Her language knowledge included everything from Spanish and French, to Vulcan and Klingon. She was currently working as a speech therapist at the same school that Heather taught at. This school was Henry Viscardi, a school for physically challenged children. The school was extremely old-it had first started out back in the mid 20th century. Since then, the school had evolved into the HVS that Heather knew and loved. Many of her friends had gone to HVS as children, though she had not. Some of them were now working there. Wait. Teaching! What am I going to do about my job? She had to talk to Kat about this. She wheeled around and quickly called up her instant-messaging program on her computer. Instant-messaging was very advanced in this century. People did not need to have individual screen names anymore. You just had to type in the person's name, and you were able to start a conversation with that person, with audio and visual. In minutes, Heather was staring into the face of her best friend on her monitor.
"Hey, Kat." Kathleen's actually very pretty, Heather realized. Wavy blonde hair framed her freckled face, and her blue eyes stood out prominently in her thin face. Heather herself was pretty, with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, usually pulled back into a ponytail. Her hazel eyes shone with eagerness at the thought of being on a mostly disabled starship. A few loose strands escaped from her ponytail as she talked, and she absent-mindedly pushed them back behind her ear, her gold hoop earrings catching the light.
"Hey, Heath." Kathleen answered, breaking into a wide grin. She was sitting, as usual, in her big, electric blue power wheelchair. She had had that wheelchair for a few years now, ever since she grew out of her old, out-of-date wheelchair from childhood. That wheelchair still sat in Kathleen's garage as an emergency chair, and also as a piece of memorabilia. In truth, Kat couldn't bear to get rid of it. It was too special.
"I got your letter." Heather continued. "It sounds awesome. But what about my teaching? And Lil's work? We can't just drop all of that like a hot potato, can we?"
"Well, if you want to continue teaching and not do the mission, I guess that's OK." Kathleen sounded reluctant. "But won't it be much more fun being out in uncharted space with your best friends?"
It did sound good, Heather had to admit. And she hadn't seen Kathleen or her other friends for ages.
"Alright. I'll do it. Teaching was getting a bit tedious, anyway!"
"Yesss!" Kathleen cheered. "Did you ask Lillian if she wants to do it yet?" Heather shook her head.
"Not yet. Do you want to do three-way?" Kathleen nodded and Heather quickly keyed in her sister's name and set it up so the three girls could talk together. A minute later, Lillian's face, curly brown hair cascading over her shoulders, appeared on the monitor beside Kathleen.
"Hey, Heath. Hey, Kathleen. What's up?" Heather looked over at her friend.
"You wanna ask her?" Kat nodded and proceeded to explain the situation to Lillian. When she finished, Lil looked thoughtful.
"So I'd be one of the only able-bodied officers on the ship?" Heather exchanged uncomfortable glances with Kathleen.
"Well...yeah."
"But what about my work?" Heather took charge on this one.
"Lil, I don't like giving up my teaching work either. But this is a completely new experience, a new adventure. We could be missing out on something great. And you've always wanted to explore space.
"Yeah, when I was ten. I'm twenty-nine now. I have other priorities. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." Lillian made to close the connection, but Heather stopped her.
"Wait." Lillian paused.
"Lilly, where else are we going to get a communications officer as great as you? And you know all the deep space languages, it would be perfect!" Now Heather's voice became quieter.
"Please Lilly. We need you." Lillian thought it over. Why the hell does Heath always get me into these things? I like my job. I like the way I'm living. And she expects me to drop it all for some stupid starship?
But then again, I dokind of want to see what it's like out there...Her sister's voice cut into her thoughts again.
"Please, Lilly?" Slowly, Lillian's resistance faded away. It would be cool...
"Fine. I'll do it."
"Yes!" Kathleen and Heather cheered together. Lillian could only roll her eyes and think: What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Six months later, the crew of the Ability gathered in Cape Canaveral, Florida to board the ship and go off to uncharted space. Heather was picking her way through the crowd, searching out old friends and making some new while Kathleen trailed along behind her. After all, as the captain and first officer, wasn't it their duty to get to know their crew? Heather wasn't sure. This was her first space mission, like it was for most of the crew. Many of these disabled men and women weren't sure if they could even join Starfleet, let alone be on a starship. Many of them could not toilet themselves, and some couldn't even feed themselves. For them, it was a dream come true.
Heather was wending her way through the crowd and trying not to fall over when someone prodded her hard in the back. She whirled around to yell at the offender and was met with the grinning face of Bridget McLane.
"Bridget! Don't do that!" Heather exclaimed with an easy smile. Bridget was also one of her childhood best friends. A stroke in infancy had left her basically paralyzed on the right side of her body, and she used one crutch sometimes, just like Heather. Bridget loved proving people wrong about her, she was one of those disabled people who would rather live among "normal" people and prove that she was capable, rather than live among disabled people and be able to be disabled comfortably. Heather supposed it was a matter of opinion; she herself would rather be immersed in the disability culture, which she was. Bridget acted frequently in amateur plays and musicals. Her dream was to be an actress on Broadway someday. That dream would have to be put on hold for now.
"Where's Maureen?" she asked, looking around. Lt. Maureen Lamore was the final member of the foursome. Together, the four had met on their baseball team for kids with disabilities and become so close, they were almost like sisters. And they stayed that way, even as each girl went their separate ways.
"Right here." said a voice from behind them. Heather twisted around to see Maureen, precariously balancing on her two trademark purplish-pink forearm crutches. Maureen had moderate cerebral palsy, somewhere in the middle of Heather's and Kathleen's. She used the forearm crutches to walk, although she could walk extremely short distances without them. Maureen was the most logical out of the group; indeed her logic could sometimes be borderline Vulcan-esque. Heather was almost convinced that Maureen had to have some Vulcan blood in her, somewhere. But Maureen always insisted that she was sure that she was completely, 100 human. Maureen was also the quietest of the group, and she did more thinking than talking. The other three girls talked a lot more than they thought. But together, the four girls were an unstoppable force, an incredible friendship. Their friendship was already strengthened beyond any "normal" friendship; now it would get the ultimate test, being on a starship together for three years, at least.
The four girls embraced. It's been so long since we've seen each other, mused Heather. Yet, I think that's just made us closer. It was a minute before she realized that they were somewhat tangled in the group hug position, and there didn't seem to be a way to get out of it. Arms were tangled together, crutches knocked into each other, and Heather was very sure that if they didn't get out of this group hug, she was going to fall on her butt. And it would hurt. Just then, there was a ripple in the crowd of people, and the Ability's reluctant communications officer pushed through, a large duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
"What are you two doing?" she questioned, surveying the scene with disdain. It wasn't rare to find her sister and friends tangled in some sort of absurd position, but she had to admit that this one took the cake.
"What does it look like we're doing?" Heather managed, despite the fact that Bridget's overly strong arm was nearly choking her. Lillian raised an eyebrow.
"It looks like you're doing some sort of twisted circle dance." she responded, her eyes never leaving the group.
"Well, that's not it. It's a group hug." Heather replied, somewhat annoyed. Her nerves were already on edge from being the first officer on a starship; having her big sister make her feel stupid only made it worse.
"Well excuse me for not recognizing it." Lillian shot back. Heather was about to retort when a voice piped up from inside the hug.
"Um, I hate to interrupt this session of sisterly bonding," Bridget interrupted, voice dripping with sarcasm. "But could someone please untangle us?" Lillian sighed, and without further ado, began to separate the mess of arms, legs and crutches. Just then, one of the engineers who had been checking the Ability for last-minute problems came up to the small group.
"Uh, Captain?" he asked. He reached out a tentative hand to tap Kathleen on the shoulder, then recoiled when she jumped.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" he said quickly. "Did I hurt you?" Kathleen gave him a strange look.
"Um. No." Kathleen turned back to her friends for a split second, giving them a plainly exasperated look. This guy was clearly one of those people who had absolutely no idea how to act in front of a disabled person. He had probably never seen a disabled person in his life, and now the poor soul was around a whole crowd of them. Thank god he wasn't part of the crew. If Kathleen had had enough coordination to roll her eyes, she would have.
"Um. So yeah. I just, uh, wanted to let you know that, uh, we're ready to, uh, begin boarding the ship. Wh-when you're ready, that is." All the while, the engineer was backing steadily away from the group, clearly wanting to get as far away from the disabled population as possible.
"So, uh, I'll just, uh, be right over here. Uh, that is if you need me. Or anything." By now the poor man was so far away, he was half-shouting. As soon as he was out of earshot, all five girls burst out laughing.
"Oh, man." Heather gasped, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "This mission is definitely going to be interesting." And so the crew picked up their bags and started slowly towards the starship, and a very interesting journey.
A/N: Yay, I've finally finished the first chapter! This is a prequel to Set A Course For Freedom, but you don't necessarily have to read that to understand this. Although it might help. So, tell me what you think! Go ahead and review!