A glittering pair of sky blue eyes surveyed the wreckage surrounding him. He was, for what he could believe, standing amid the only patch of ground in visible sight after carefully stepping his way through broken glass, steel, rubble, and other materials that had been uprooted and crumbled during the explosion. He couldn't even begin to fathom how many lives had suffered a painful death on this section of the planet due to the attack, and he didn't want to. Even if he was sure that his Science Officer would mention the number when he beamed back aboard the ship, for the moment, he simply didn't want to know.
"Captain!" an out-of-breath voice called, and the tall male turned around. His hands were clasped firmly behind his back as he waited for the security personnel officer to regain his breath enough to speak. "You've dropped your communicator, sir. I found it among the rubble. The Hudson is attempting to contact you, and when they hadn't received an answer, they ordered our landing party into a search party instead. I'm glad you're okay, but—"
"Mr. West, would you mind getting to the point? Thank you for finding my communicator. I guess I was being careless. It won't happen again, I assure you." A slight twitch of his lips indicated the ghost of a small smile, but his heart was still heavy from the damage that the planet had received and there was nothing beyond just that.
After handing the communicator back to his commanding officer, the man straightened. "The Hudson recently allowed a shuttle to board the ship after receiving communication from it, sir. The First Officer gave the shuttle permission to board when they realized that the men aboard included your brother and one of your fathers."
Those blue eyes widened at the news. Even if he was concerned for the current state of the planet, that was startling news. His brother, and one of his two fathers…? It was true they were close to New Vulcan, but what would make them take such a sudden and abrupt step to find him on his ship? Well, he assumed that he was about to find out. "Thank you, Mr. West. News of any survivors?"
"The search party discovered a nuclear war shelter beneath the city. There aren't many survivors besides groups of children and elderly, but the rest of the fleet on other sections of the planet have been more successful in their searches. It seems like this side of the planet was hit the worst, Captain." The man looked solemn, and if it weren't for the Captain's sensitivity to touch, he would have rested a hand on the other's slumped shoulder.
"We'll ride back with them on the shuttles, then. Estimate on the survival rate?"
"Around one-hundred and seventy-two found alive, sir. Mostly children."
It was true. When West led him to the shuttles, the groups surrounding it, being ushered inside them by the Hudson's personnel, were mostly children, varying from the age groups of 4-17. West motioned towards the main shuttle, named Kennedy and significantly larger than the other shuttles, and disappeared amongst the crowd to help with the traffic of people. Mostly, all the Captain could hear were cries of young children, asking for their parents, and no adult figures besides his crewmen and scarce elderly people of the planet trying to soothe what few they could. On the way to the Kennedy, he scooped up a young girl who had fallen on the ground and had scraped her knees on glass. She buried her head into his shoulder and cried while he gently and subtly bounced her on his arm.
Once all of the shuttles were full, leaving only half of the landing party left—enough to be beamed up rather than picked up by another shuttle—the shuttles took off. The Kennedy was the first to land, and as the Captain exited the small transporter, he still carried the young girl, who was now reduced to whimpers and hiccups. A sweep of the medical team was soon upon them, leading those injured away. The Captain deposited the small girl into one of the Chief Medical Officer's arms, but the girl fought against the trade.
"Don' weave me!" the small child exclaimed, large tears rolling down her round face. The Captain's heart would have bled, if it could for a reason such as that, but he simply reached out and ran a hand through her silken white hair—an attribute of the people that inhabited what used to be a prosperous planet.
"You can see me again. Let them make you feel better first, alright?" She eventually nodded, though her tears didn't cease, and she waved to him over the doctor's shoulder before they disappeared behind the shuttlebay doors.
As more shuttles landed, the Captain could barely hear anything over the noise. He was soon intercepted by a yeoman among the crowd of white. "Sir, this way."
He followed her into the lowest deck of the ship and towards one of the more minor turbolifts, one that didn't lead to the bridge. Instead it led them to Deck 5, and down the hallway towards the main briefing room. She nodded her head to him and he passed through the automatic doors, heart thudding almost audibly against his ribcage. After all, it had been six months since he had last seen his brother, and almost three years since seeing either of his fathers in the flesh rather than over a visual communication.
When he entered the room, he found his younger brother sitting anxiously in one of the chairs surrounding the central table. His black hair contradicted his pale features, but the angular cut of it was so typically Vulcan, unlike his own raven curls. Their pointed ears were unmistakably symmetrical, and so were their matching cerulean eyes, ones that met when the door whisked open. The Captain quirked one slanted brow at his younger brother, and instantly they mirrored sunlit grins, so unlike Vulcan culture. They met each other half way and gripped their hands together tightly, sharing recent emotions.
"Seth, it's so good to see you," his brother sighed, and glanced over his shoulder at their father, who was leaning with his arms crossed against the table, watching them amusedly with his crystalline gaze—the same ones that they hailed theirs from.
"You too, Sven. How has the Science Academy on New Vulcan been treating you?" Captain Seth L. Kirk asked. If it weren't for the current situation, his grin would have been too large for his face. For now, it was simply moderate.
Sven straightened, the mention of 'Vulcan' almost like a wake-up call to him. "It is required for the completion of my training."
Seth resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and he could see that his father was doing the same behind Sven. "Please, even father doesn't want you talking like that all the time. Not around us, at least."
After a moment, Sven's eyes and posture softened, and his eyes showed that he was in a slight bit of distress. "It's horrible! You know how father used to tell us that the Vulcan children bullied him because he was half human? Well, I'm even more human than he was, and the other day—"
Their father cleared his throat and stood away from the table, placing his hands on young Sven's shoulders just as Seth's younger brother began to tear up. Due to his more-human-than-Vulcan heritage, he was born with tear ducts. And Seth already knew by experience that his brother's tear ducts worked quite well. "We can talk about that later, can't we? How about dinner first? I'm starving."
Seth looked over his brother's head at their father, his once golden hair turned almost brown over the years, probably with his attempt to dye it to keep his head from being overrun with gray. "Of course, Admiral Kirk."
"Oh, please, Seth," Jim scoffed, reaching out to ruffle his full grown son's head. Even though Seth was in his twenties and he looked to be catching up to his father in height, he was shorter. "If you don't call me Dad, I think I'll cry, too."
They shared a laugh, even Sven, and Seth raised his chin. "You got it, Dad."