The Stuff of Captains
Hi there! Thank you for clicking and taking a chance on my fic. I will preface my work by saying that I am a major newbie to the Star Trek universe. I saw my first Star Trek movie not a year ago and watched the first episode of the original series about two months ago. I'm working my way through the original series now with a friend and we promised that we'd write fics after finishing season one.
Having said this, I apologize in advance for any mischaracterization, misuse of terms, technology, and anything else I may have screwed up. I am first and foremost a Star Wars fan, so you may notice some of that mindset here. I am quite enjoying Star Trek however, and would appreciate constructive criticism so that I can improve my writing as well as geek knowledge.
I've also been away from for awhile and to my Star Wars readers I do apologize. I can't promise any new stuff soon, but considering I wrote this, I have seen that I do have time to plot out short stories after all. While you're at it, I would recommend reading my friend's fic, far funnier than mine, "The Enterprise gets a lecture on Sexual Harassment" by Philippa.
One final note: this story will have about three chapters, that is, if you the readers wish me to continue. It's based on the final episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, titled "Operation: Annihilate!".
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. I actually don't know who owns the franchise, but they're probably living longer and prospering more.
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There was a lot of pain for a long time. That's the best way I can describe it. I could give you images, lots of sentences about floating through a sea of red haze, fighting for every breath and thought, struggling to help my mother as she tried to shut the danger out, while she screamed and gasped for air. I could tell you of my father who kept lunging at her, twisting and writhing, his face a strange grotesque mockery of its usual stern discipline. My mother looked at his face in horror and disbelief as she pushed me further back.
"Peter, lie down and don't make any sudden movements," she told me as we tried to make our way out of the lab. My father continued his odd pantomime farther on, crying out to my mother.
"Aurelan! Aurelan! Don't let them get to you, run! Take Peter and run!" he cried. He was turning horrible shades of red.
"Sam, I won't leave you," she cried. "Fight them! Oh God, please!"
I was still lying down, watching as my mother fought with the controls to try and contact an outside star ship. There had been reports that the Enterprise was on its way—a real first-class cruiser, a discovery ship! It was headed by my uncle, a man I'd met in a time that now rendered my memories of him as vague shadows.
I felt a sting, sharp, small, precise. I cried out in pain, choking back bile. I tried to reach to my back, where something had latched on, but could not manage to stretch that far. Then the offending presence was gone and I really could not get up from the floor.
I heard my mother sobbing, crying, and a man's voice, from far away.
"Aurelan, this is Captain Kirk, it's Jim. What's going on?" the voice asked, tinny and oh so far away over the communicator.
I heard a thump and my mother was suddenly on the floor, next to me, her mouth agape in pain and horror. My father had long ago ceased to move.
"Tell Jim," my mother whispered. "Peter if you can, tell him to be careful. They'll sting and paralyze…"
She spoke no more. I would never hear her speak again.
"Mom…" I had the most random ideas enter my head, odd impulses, quirks that caused my body to jerk and shake. I had an idea that I should get up, go out and find grown-ups and begin to train in weapons, begin to build things, begin to contribute to the greater good. There was a voice, almost a presence that was urging me on to go on and do all of this.
Fight them, was what my mother had said to my dad. Both lay on the floor; neither made a sound. Even the communicator was silent now. I looked up, fighting the strange nervous impulses running through me, and then all faded to black.
They tell me that my mother woke up again, that she fought it as best she could. They tell me she lived long enough to see her brother-in-law on the USS Enterprise, that she fought against the creatures' commands long enough to give him some sort of warning, and that she died in extreme agony, but in service to the universe. My father died without a whimper. His body was recovered later and buried on earth, alongside my mother.
And me? The next thing I remember is the face of a kind nurse, blonde hair piled high on her head in the latest fashion, wearing a blue regulation outfit, holding a handy clipboard, and checking my vitals. I must have made some sound, because she turned and looked at me, her eyes lighting up in excitement.
"Peter! How are you feeling?"
"Unnh," I replied, feeling as if I was coming out from a long, deep sleep. I was, but I had no way of knowing that so much time had passed between my mother yelling at me and waking up in what I presumed was a hospital.
"Understandable," she smiled, eyes twinkling. "You've been exposed to more ultraviolet than I think is healthy young man, but Dr. McCoy, Captain Kirk, and Spock don't seem to agree."
I continued to try to focus on the babbling woman. "Who?" I could not quite get the words out in a coherent fashion. My brain felt like it had been slammed straight into the wall and then kneaded into soft, gooey dough.
"I'm Nurse Chapel," she smiled. "And you're onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise."
She walked away as I scanned the room, searching for the gadgetry, the technological awe and presence that I often associated with starships in my imagination. It might seem odd that a child on the Deneva colony could still retain wonder at space, but having lived planet-side for most of my waking childhood—that time when everything finally begins to clear up and you make more solid, concrete memories—and having only made starship trips a couple of times, my awe was still intact. However, I saw nothing to assuage my wanderlust in this room. In fact, it was barren, two bunks with cots on it, a couple of interesting looking machines that seemed to be measuring my body functions, a desk, and an intercom that the nurse was now talking into.
"Captain Kirk, Peter's awake," she was saying into the intercom now.
"I'll be right down. Kirk out," the reply came, clear and crisp. I struggled to sit up in attention to its sound.
"Your Uncle Jim is on his way," Nurse Chapel smiled. She had a kind face, perhaps not the most beautiful, but I basked in its attention.
"Uncle Jim?" I asked. "Where is my mom? Dad? What happened to the bad things?"
Nurse Chapel sighed. "We'll discuss that when your uncle gets here Peter. Don't worry about it for now. Just try to get some rest."
I may have been young, but every child knows when an adult is hiding information from them, especially if it's bad news.
Whoosh. There was a sound as the automatic doors opened on the sickbay and I heard that voice, now not tinny or far away, but up close. It boomed in a way that commanded respect. Then he was there at my bedside, eyes full of concern.
"Peter," the man said. He wore the colors of a Federation officer and he resembled my father in just enough ways that I became suddenly saddened.
"Uncle Jim? What happened? Where is everyone?" I asked, my strength returning slowly. "Did you kill those things? Did…"
"Peter," Captain Kirk interrupted. "I'm so glad to see that you're okay. I'm really sorry to tell you…your father and mother…they died trying to save your life and the millions of others on the colony at Deneva."
Shock broke over me in waves. I felt as if I had been plunged into a cold, merciless ocean. My uncle's face did not change, stern and perhaps made of the stuff of captains. It was something I could never understand, and probably never will.
"Captain, don't you think—"
"Shhh," Captain Kirk put up a hand to both stop nurse Chapel from approaching and to get her to be silent. "Peter, I'm sorry about all of this. If I, if I had been faster, better, smarter, we would have saved your parents, but I'm afraid it's my fault that they are dead. I'm sorry."
I had not realized that there were tears lurking out of my eyes. "Those evil things killed them?"
My uncle merely nodded, looking tired, old and defeated. Nurse Chapel moved over to the monitor that indicated my vital signs and seemed to be preparing a syringe. She put a hand on my arm.
"Keep breathing Peter, you're still very weak," she said. She shot a disapproving glance at the captain, similar to the type that my mom often shot my dad, although you could always see the love that shone behind her eyes.
My eyes bugged out. I was scared. What was going to happen now? A million questions raced through my head.
"Peter, I'll take good care of you," Captain Kirk said. "Please…let me…adopt you."
Then my mind, again, is a blank. I think that I woke up several times in small intervals, hearing snippets of conversation, a man's voice, with a strange twang, gruffer than my uncle's, barking out orders, then gently retracting them with a bit of kindness. Another voice, mechanical, perfect in its cadence and enunciation, reading off facts. In my more lucid moments, I realize that the sound of these voices would be enough for any dreaming child planet-side who thought of the Enterprise, but at the time they were just part of so many sounds.
Then I broke through to consciousness. The lights in the sickbay room were dimmed and I could just make out the figure of my uncle sitting in a chair near my bedside. His head was on his chest and he was lightly snoring. I blinked and tried to make out my surroundings—still the sickbay, still on a small cot, covered with a thin blanket. The monitor on the wall above my head beeped quietly. All was still.
Then there was the sudden familiarwhoosh of the doors and a figure, slight, shorter than my uncle, but determined strode in.
"Jim, what the hell do you think you're doing in here after hours?" the voice that I'd often thought of as gruff in my vague consciousness said into the silence.
Uncle Jim started with surprise, sprang out of his chair, somehow did a roll in the enclosed space, came up on the other side of the man who had just switched on the lights, and locked him in a vicious grip.
"Jim!" the man gasped, his windpipe blocked by my bleary eyed uncle.
"Oh!" my uncle promptly let go of the man, who I assumed now was his friend, and blinked rapidly, shaking his head to clear it of fogginess. "Bones, you know you shouldn't wake me like that!"
"Damned fool," the slighter man gasped for air. "The hell is all your fancy martial arts academy training for? Making fools and mincemeat outta your only doctor?"
"Peter!" my uncle noticed that I was awake and rushed towards me. He smiled and before I knew it I was enveloped in a bone crushing hug. Once I was free, I found myself slightly wheezing, like the doctor who had just recovered.
"Jim, you tryin' to kill as many people as you can tonight?" the doctor, who I'd begun to think of as Dr. Bones, asked as he shoved my uncle out of the way. "Hey there son. I'm Dr. McCoy. How ya feeling?"
"Better," I finally choked out. "When can I leave?"
At this my uncle cracked up. Dr. McCoy shot him a look and turned back to me.
"Damned Kirks. All the same. When can I leave and save the universe? You're gonna stay right here at least for the night son. Then you're free to go as far as I'm concerned. You seem to have made a speedy recovery."
"Runs in the family," my uncle was smiling, although he looked a little tired.
"Yeah, along with stubbornness and foolhardiness!" there was a definite twang in the doctor's words, but I sensed that his words were not truly meant in a mean spirited sense. "You are to march straight back to your quarters captain and get to bed."
"But doctor, surely I can stay with the boy and have a few words?" my uncle made a pleading gesture with his hands and looked fiercely at the doctor.
"Fine," Dr. McCoy relented a little. "But you're outta here in five minutes, understood? I want the boy to get his rest."
"Of course doctor," my uncle turned back and winked at me, which caused me to suppress a chuckle. "What brought you down here in the first place?"
"Instinct, Jim," the doctor smiled. "I noticed you didn't head towards your quarters straight after your shift. I had a feeling if you weren't back there by this time, you'd be in sickbay."
"Bones, you impress me," the captain said.
Dr. McCoy shrugged. "Also, this is where I keep my midnight snack."
With that the doctor turned on his heel and wandered into the next room, leaving my uncle with his mouth wide open. When the doctor returned with a bag of sweets my uncle burst out laughing.
"Leonard McCoy, who would have thought?" my uncle asked.
"Five minutes Jim. I'll see you tomorrow morning Peter," was the good doctor's only reply as he shot us both a wry smile before leaving.
As the doors closed behind the doctor, my uncle turned to me and smiled. He rubbed his eyes and yawned.
"How are you feeling Peter?"
"Pretty well I guess," I replied. "I'm just kind of…"
"Shocked? Tired? Weak? Overwhelmed?" Uncle Jim interjected.
"Sad," I replied. "Mom and dad?"
Uncle Jim looked properly mollified. "I'm so sorry Peter. I promise I'll make it up to you. They both died fine, heroic deaths. There's to be a funeral on Deneva in a few days. I'll be beaming down to pay my respects to Sam. If you're strong enough, you can come, but you don't have to."
I looked away, staring at the blank wall as I tried to process that my parents really were dead. Mom and Dad would never be back, they'd never come in to read me bedtime stories of starship captain heroes who saved the galaxy. They'd never be there to soothe me, to chase away the monsters, to tell me it would be alright. The only person I had left was Uncle Jim and yet, I didn't know if that would be enough.
"Peter," my uncle Jim gave me another hug and patted me on the back. "Perhaps this isn't the time. You should get some sleep. Tomorrow if you're strong enough, you can visit the bridge and we'll talk more about things then."
"Uncle Jim?" I asked as the captain made a move to leave me be. "Would you…my mom used to help me sleep, when I was feeling bad. She would, sing me songs."
"Yes?" my uncle stood in a half crouch, watching me patiently.
I felt embarrassed, but I pushed on. "Would you sing me, um, would you sing me a lullaby?"
My uncle looked completely perplexed. "A lullaby? Me?"
"Please?" I asked, my inner three year old craving emotional comfort.
"I…all right," my uncle said at last, reseating himself. "I'll do my best. But don't tell the crew."
I smiled. "I won't if you won't."
"Agreed."
My uncle cleared his throat and began to softly hum a star ditty that I'd never heard before. However, it was soothing and before I knew it, my eyes were closing and finally, I was enveloped in the warm haze of sleep.
I hope you enjoyed the first part. Please be sure to read and review! :)