James T Kirk: TNG

Quarks

In his travels, James T Kirk had seen many space stations. Most of them were boring metal constructs. They were not without technical merit, to be sure, but Starfleet's architects seemed void of any imagination beyond the bland. Before Kirk had left on his five year mission with the Enterprise, back in the 23rd century, he had seen many space-station prototypes that seemed inspired by nothing more than giant mushrooms.

The future giant mushroom space stations Starfleet had imagined would no doubt prove to be very impressive gigantic ports that could hold several Starships inside their massive innards, but they were, in Kirk's opinion, boring. But when the Transport vessel carrying Kirk and his wife Myran came out of Warp, and when Kirk saw their destination, Deep Space Nine, he gasped with awe. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, and the best part? Even without having ever set one foot on DS9, Jim Kirk could tell that it had character; it was probably as "life like" to its inhabitants as the Enterprise seemed to Kirk and Scotty and the rest of the old crew.

"What is this place again?" Kirk asked Myran.

"It's called Deep Space Nine," Myran said. "It was originally built in orbit of my world; Bajor."

Myran had told Kirk about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, but in a broader context.

"But it's a Starfleet outpost now?" Kirk asked.

"Well," Myran added, "Since Bajor is part of the Federation now, and its military has been merged with Starfleet, it's all the same. But in the not so distant past, before Bajor joined the Federation, it was administered by Bajoran and Starfleet personal. In fact, the first Federation commander was a human named Benjamin Sisko, who was also a religious icon to my people."

"A human was a religious icon to your people?" Kirk said with disbelief in his voice. "What do you mean by that?"

Myran took a breath, and was about to explain, before she shook her head.

"He was the Emissary to our Prophets, but It's a long story Robert (Kirk's alias)," Myran said with a smile, "I'll tell you the full story some other time."

Kirk went back to looking out the window as the Transport vessel made its final approach. Thirty minutes later, after the Transport had docked at one of the upper pylons, the passengers were soon making their way into the round habit area that was the Mecca of the station.

Perhaps more than any other space station he had been too, DS9 had a wide variety of alien visitors and crew members. All kinds of alien sentient life forms made their way through the large space station. In the intervening years when Kirk vanished from the 23rd Century and arrived over a hundred years the future, Kirk was proud of how far the Federation had come in terms of bringing other worlds into membership. He knew his wife could see the awe in his eyes, and he knew she could hear the excitement in this voice, but he had to keep real truth of his genuine enthusiasm to himself.

With their luggage safely checked in, and with three hours to spare before the next flight to Bajor, Myran had offered to ask one of the officers to take them on a tour. But Kirk, fearing he might be noticed by a Starfleet officer, bluffed his way out of the tour, and took up her second offer; a drink at the local bar.

As they made their way through the Promenade, Kirk felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It was caused by seeing this century's version of a Klingon warrior walking past him.

"Why is it you always seem suspicious of Klingons?" Myran asked. "They are our allies don't you know?"

Kirk had always found that hard to believe.

(Writer's reminder; this Jim Kirk is from what would be considered Star Trek's second season, thus Klingons were without the ridges)

If there was one true constant in the universe, other than bureaucracy of government, it was the fact that most bars were dark, loud, and had secluded tables. The moment they walked into the bar, which was called Quarks, Kirk knew right away that it was a safe place to go if one wanted to fade into the background.

The first thing Kirk noticed was the scantily clad women who waited the tables, and stood around the table of some of game of chance, no doubt to distract the customer's concentration from the game. It was an old trick that had worked since the dawn of time. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same, Kirk thought with a smile.

A waitress showed Jim Kirk and Myran to a table on the upper level. Kirk could not keep his eyes off of the buxom beauty that was showing them to their seats. The unique outfit that exposed the lower half of her bosom was hard not to notice. After seating them, the waitress excused herself and walked away.

"Um, Robert," Myran said, feigning anger, "try not to stare too hard at the waitress. She might spontaneously combust."

Kirk smiled, and knew she was being sarcastic.

"Sometimes you act as if you've never been in space, or seen Starships, or any modern technology; it's one of the things I love most about you." Myran said. "Did you live a sheltered life when you were a child?"

Kirk was happy to know that his act of naivety had been working.

"Actually," Kirk said, as he looked down at the spinning wheel on the lower level that was causing so much cheering, "I lived on small farm on," he realized he was being to open, and altered his real to what he had told her ever since they had been married, "Cestus III."

"Yeah," Myran said, "you told me that before. Cestus III may have a professional Baseball team, but it's so remote, almost as remote as Timus."

Kirk looked past Myran and saw a Starfleet officer, a medical officer to be more precise, the grayish uniforms were hard for Kirk to read sometimes, being seated at the table behind her. Kirk was happy that the man facing away from where Kirk and Myran sat. Then, seconds later, a small impish looking alien, which Kirk had been told by Myran was a Ferengi, came over to the Starfleet officer. Kirk strained to hear what the two were talking about.

"Transfer, you're going to transfer?" the Ferengi asked the human.

"Quark, you knew this was going to happen," the Starfleet officer replied. "It's time for Ezri and I to move on, just as Miles and Worf did."

"I don't like it Julian," the alien named Quark replied, "It isn't fare. Did you know that when my customers come here, and get tipsy, I tell them; go see Dr. Julian Bashir. Why they ask? I tell them it's because you will make the hangover last ten minutes instead of ten hours. Who will I send them to once you're gone?"

"Quark," Bashir said, "You need to go buy that moon you've always wanted and move on yourself."

"I don't want to," Quark protested. "And neither do you really, or Ezri." Quark sat down across from Julian. "If you do leave, you will come and visit I hope."

"You know I will," Bashir replied. "I promised Captain Sisko I would be back for Rebecca's (Sisko's daughter, more on this later) birthday, and I will."

"You know," Quark said, "he isn't a Captain anymore. Why do you and the others keep calling him that?"

"Out of habit, and respect," Bashir said. "All of us spent so much time together, fighting the Dominion, having to deal with Dukat, heck, even meeting Kirk… that calling Captain Sisko anything else would seem wrong."

Kirk listened to the exchange and concluded he was the Kirk that the man had just mentioned. But Kirk had no memory of ever meeting him, nor who ever Captain Sisko was.

(writer's note; this Jim Kirk left the 23rd Century just a few weeks before the events of Trouble with Tribbles)

"Oh, you know what?" Bashir said getting up, "I forgot that I'm supposed to meet Ezri at her office, and then we were going to come here. I'll be right back," Bashir said to Quark.

Bashir headed away, leaving Quark shaking his head. Suddenly Quark stood up and came over to where Kirk and Myran were seating.

"Excuse me," Quark said to Kirk, while looking down at the empty table, "but if you're loitering, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Kirk was about to respond when suddenly the waitress returned.

"What took you so long?" Quark demanded of the waitress. "I almost had these two thrown out for loitering," Quark then looked to Kirk. "I truly am sorry about that. I assure you that I will dock her pay next week."

"Please," Kirk said, "That won't be necessary," Kirk replied, "we just got here ourselves."

Quark glowered at the waitress, then at Kirk, and then hurried away.

The waitress took their order and then headed away.

"You seem at home in a place like this," Myran said finally. "I swear there is more to you Robert Crane than you have told me."

Kirk smiled at his wife; if she only knew, he thought to himself.

A couple hours later, after leaving Quarks, Jim Kirk and his wife were boarding another transport vessel. It was the final flight, and would take them to Myran's home world of Bajor. Jim Kirk didn't realize it at the time, but his life was about to change again very soon. And it would happen the moment he would meet the man Dr. Julian Bashir had been talking about with Quark; Benjamin Sisko.