Disclaimer: The existence of some alternate reality in which I own both Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the Star Trek franchise is almost too joyous to contemplate. Alas...
Rating: T for trips to the swear jar.
Summary: "Some idiot is humming the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme in a way that suggests they've mistaken "humming" for "scat-singing"
A/N: A stream of consciousness, almost dialogue free, Diaz-centric, Star Trek reboot drabble. Title roughly translates to "a rough road leads to the stars."
Ad Astra per Aspera
Appointment to the U.S.S. Helena is considered quite a coo among recent Star Fleet graduates. Not only does the elegant ship boast a decorated chief medical officer and a brilliant tactician of a first commander, it's five-year mission success rate remains untarnished, an idea that-prior to the Helena's maiden voyage-is referred to only in the strictest of hypotheticals.
There is also the small, rarely-discussed matter of the Helena being commanded by the youngest person to attain captaincy in Star Fleet history.
Her origin story-that of a gifted, but rebellious Earth child squandering her potential in dance halls and bike clubs in Park Slope until she is convinced by a greying, visiting captain to put her sharpened instincts and innumerable skill to constructive use at Star Fleet- is just the sort of inspiring mythos the admiralty adores. The less pertinent, more emotional threads of the narrative, Diaz's isolated childhood, her tense relationship with a mother who spends a good percentage of her time off planet, her father's death during his four and a half minutes as acting captain of the U.S.S. Endeavor, are used in the official Star Fleet recruitment program as examples of the adversity destined individuals most overcome to realize their greatness. Legend asserts that Diaz grows into herself at the academy. That amidst a rebellious streak that can't be bothered to hide itself well and an innate aptitude for memorizing star dates and solving tactical problems during voyage simulations, she achieves a sense of hard won peace that is reflected in the admiralty's frequent observation of her work and in her classmates obvious affection for her.
Upon her graduation, the girl is granted captaincy of the Helena in a exalted ceremony. The whole of Star Fleet is gripped by varying degrees of excitation ranging from reverential contentment to open, ecstatic weeping. Birds sing, laurel leaves float majestically before retiring on the outdoor stage and the pathos of the moment is captured by a spontaneous half rainbow marking the upper atmosphere.
It's a nice story.
The "greying" captain finds his future protégée on a bar room floor in Prospect Heights, the dubious winner of a brawl that includes five Star Fleet cadets (and one innocent civilian whose desire for Pilsner I temporarily outweighs any and all personal safety concerns) with her head against the bar trying to drain her Michelobe Classic of it's last stubborn drops. The "motivational speech" is less inspiring call to arms and more hour-long indictment of her shitty life choices/gaping character flaws, punctuated by an incredulous, eye contact-laden "What the fuck are you doing?" Which, Diaz assumes, refers to all seventeen Earth years of her life.
She's hit that fourth level of drunk off her ass where her hallucinations are super vivid and occasionally have trouble shutting the hell up. She nods seriously while he pitches her the moon and the stars and a sense of purpose, only laughs when he gets to the part about "serving as an ambassador for galactic peace and sustainability," while blatantly using her dead dad as emotional leverage. By the time Diaz hits the fifth stage, is grounding out her third, mirthless, query ("Why are you talking to me man?") bookended by the amount of growling that would light up the cortex responsible for self-preservation in most life forms but only succeeds in narrowing the proximity of his unholy vermilion uniform to her dry retinas, the stranger is kneeling to examine her bloody lip while shaking his head as though he's simultaneously tipping her chin up and witnessing a timeline where this tragedy is being prevented.
He waits until her hazy pupils focus on him before he issues his ultimatum, gaze unwavering, voice like gravel.
The deliberate rigidity of his speech will rob her of the coma-sleep typically afforded by a night of cheap beer and light cardio, will necessitate the furious search for her gym bag and the semi-legible note she folds into a paper crane and leaves on the kitchen counter.
(Hangover burning bright blue in the hellish high resolution of too early in the goddamned morning, she straps herself into a window seat across the aisle from the inbred ass clowns she tangos with the night before sitting in order from "light bruising" to "damn what happened to your face", politely avoiding eye contact and still wearing the imprints of her knuckles like face tattoos. Some is humming the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme in a way that suggests they've mistaken "humming" for "scat singing", and "scat singing" for "loud, feral mouth sounds." The lights flicker, and some losers in the corner start making blast off noises and the bones in her right hand ache, just slightly, lodged between her knees under the wash of light and the cracked, open sky, but the pain is gone and there's this sharp, sudden sweetness about the way it left, and she doesn't look anywhere- not down, or up, or out, or in-when the shuttle starts to move.
On the edge of the sprawling, callow lawns shored up by twin pairs of transparent gates and the steel whirr of something-traffic or people reaching their ears half-formed Diaz thinks about getting back on the shuttle.
The moment passes.)