Chapter 4: First Voyage of the Enterprise

A/N: This chapter gave me some fits because so much of it had to come from the movie, which is always at least a little frustrating… And to make things worse, the next chapter also has a bunch of movie stuff, so that one is also gonna take forever… But the end of the next chapter, or maybe the chapter after that (we'll see once I start writing), it's back to the angsty drama stuff that I wanted to do all along, but I couldn't exactly ignore the events of the movie since that's pretty damn important… So this isn't my favorite chapter, but several important things do happen.

On the other hand… guess who finally found her damn copy of the Star Trek movie! This girl! Woohoo! So not tonight cuz I have other things I want to write tonight, but tomorrow hopefully I'll watch it again and then really get to work on chapter 5! Hooray!

Disclaimer: Don't own Star Trek or any characters or any dialogue I borrowed from the movie!

It was less than a month after that disastrous luncheon with Hikaru before Pavel Chekov filed into a large auditorium-style room with the rest of the student body. No one had seemed entirely sure why they'd all been summoned, but he quickly learned that it was because a student had been caught cheating on the Kobyashi Maru. Chekov slumped over in his seat, utterly bored by the proceedings and brooding over Hikaru's disappearance from his life. From his seat, he also had a perfect view of Jason and Erica sitting together, holding hands and kissing and generally acting like a very loving couple. It was enough to make the Russian teen sick.

Chekov watched disinterestedly as Professor Spock spoke serenely to the animated cadet… what was his name? Chekov tried to recall, studying the boyishly charming cadet with messy hairy and eyes that were blue enough to be seen from his seat in the middle of the auditorium. But as much as he tried to distract himself, Chekov found himself daydreaming about Hikaru again.

Suddenly people were on their feet, stepping briskly out of the auditorium. Something had happened. A messenger had interrupted the disciplinary hearing. Chekov thought he caught the words "Vulcan" and "distress signal" and something in Professor Spock's rigid posture suggested some level of agitation. The Russian teen found himself swept along with the flow of the other students down to Hangar 1 where all the starships were waiting to be boarded. Hardly able to contain his glee at finally being able to go into space, Chekov hurried over with the other cadets to hear which ship he'd be assigned to. He very nearly squealed with joy when he found that he was being assigned to the Enterprise under Christopher Pike as a navigator. He would have run straight there, but this was the maiden voyage of Starfleet's new flagship and it would not do for him to behave like an overexcited child on that first occasion.

As he walked towards the ship, he could hear excited cadets calling out to each other as they found out who they'd be sharing a ship with and who they wouldn't see until they were back on Earth. There were people hugging and talking excitedly everywhere, and Chekov felt his stomach drop a little. Maybe he should go find Jason and Erica… or Natalya. Maybe he'd even be lucky enough to see Hikaru.

He detoured, and he thought a heard a voice with a Southern accent saying "The board will rule in your favor… probably." Not stopping to wonder what that was all about, the teen kept walking. He was near the Farragaut when he saw Natalya. She and the Orion woman he'd seen her with a few times before were hugging the African-American woman who was their constant companion.

"PASHA!" Natalya squealed, spotting him. "Nyota, have you met Pavel? Pasha, Nyota is like my best friend, and she's on the Enterprise with you!"

"Pleasure to meet you," Chekov said politely, holding out his hand. She grasped it and smiled warmly.

"Nyota Uhura. You must be Pavel Chekov. Natalya talks about you all the time, and you're kind of notorious around campus. I think half the people at school have tried to place a curse on you or something."

"Nyota! Don't scare him!" Natalya exclaimed.

"Oh, he's fine, he can handle it, right?" she asked, glancing at him. Chekov felt tongue-tied, not sure what to say to this gorgeous woman in front of him.

"Nattie, we should go, come on!" the Orion woman exclaimed, hugging Nyota again and ruffling Chekov's curls. "Take care of our friend, okay? I'll hold you responsible if anything happens to her, I don't want to have to look for another roommate," she teased.

"Gaila!" Natalya laughed. "Okay, let's go. See you guys when we get back!" And the pair turned and joined the queue to get onto their ship. Uhura and Chekov started walking towards the Enterprise.

"Vat is your field?" Chekov asked, finding his voice at last.

"Communications and linguistics," the girl said with an easy smile. "I've lost count of how many languages I'm fluent in."

"Dat iz amazing," Chekov said. "No vonder you vere assigned to Enterprise."

"After I had to bully Spock into it. He thought he could have me assigned to another ship. I can't believe he really thought I would put up with that. Didn't want to show favoritism my ass…" she added sulkily. Chekov wondered what on earth she was talking about, but he decided not to ask questions. He also decided that he would do his best to never EVER piss her off. Then he heard someone calling his name.

"Pav! Pasha!"

He turned and saw Erica waving at him. Chekov winced, but he couldn't very well pretend that he hadn't seen her. "Hey," he said cautiously.

"Pav, listen, I…" she began, but then a warning light started flashing.

"We really need to get to our ships," Uhura said briskly.

Erica nodded meekly. "You're right. Pasha, I'll comm you, okay?"

"Sure," he said absently, trying to stay right on Uhura's heels.

"Stay safe!" she called, waving to him.

Chekov knew it was petty, but he didn't look back at her. They hurried onto the shuttle bound for their ship. Once they arrived, he was delighted to find that he'd been placed on the bridge. He quickly began familiarizing himself with the controls and wondering who had been assigned as the pilot. Hopefully it would be someone who didn't treat him like a child… They would need to get along with each other on the long flight home after taking care of whatever had gone wrong on Vulcan.

"Report, sir," a lieutenant barked out as he walked around the bridge making sure everything was ready.

"Hikaru Sulu, sir. I'm the pilot." And with those fateful words, the Asian man that seemed to pop in and out of his life with alarming regularity plopped down into the seat next to him. Chekov couldn't believe his eyes, or his ears. Hikaru glanced up and saw who was next to him. "Hey."

"Hi," Chekov said meekly as all chatter died down and Captain Pike took his seat, talking about the maiden voyage of the Enterprise deserving more pomp than they had time for at the moment.

"Launch sequence engaged," someone said.

"All thrusters fired. Ready to disengage from spacedock," Hikaru said, already lifting the ship off. A few moments later, the ship was moving ponderously through space alongside the other six ships. "The fleet has cleared spacedock, Captain," Hikaru called back to Pike. "All ships ready for warp."

"Set a course for Vulcan," the rugged older captain said from his chair.

"Aye-aye, Captain. Course laid in," Hikaru said, glancing over at Chekov for just a half a second too long.

"Maximum warp. Punch it."

The rest of the fleet jumped off into the warp, leaving the Enterprise behind. The ship made a low growling noise, but it remained quite stationary. Hikaru frowned down at the console, trying to figure out what he'd done wrong. Chekov felt his stomach clench and he felt embarrassed on Hikaru's behalf.

"Lieutenant… Where is Helmsman McKenna?" Captain Pike asked.

"He has lungworms, sir. He couldn't report to his post. I'm Hikaru Sulu."

"And… you are a pilot, right?" Pike asked with just a touch of sarcasm.

"Very much so, sir…" Hikaru said almost meekly. He poked angrily at some buttons on the console. "I'm… uh… I'm not sure what's wrong here."

"Is the… parking brake on?" The sarcasm was almost painful in Pike's voice. Chekov winced involuntarily.

"Uh, no. I'll figure it out… I'm just…"

"Have you disengaged the external inertial dampener?" Spock asked from his seat at the science station.

Two spots of color appeared on Hikaru's cheeks and he gazed determinedly down at the console, pressing the buttons firmly, as though he could erase his errors by hammering away at those innocent buttons. "Ready for warp, sir," he bit out.

"Let's punch it," Pike said mildly, letting the moment pass without further comment.

As they went into warp, Pike told Chekov to make a ship-wide broadcast, so the teen tapped away at the keyboard, which asked for a verbal authorization.

"Ensign Authorization code: nine-five-wictor-wictor-two," Chekov said, stumbling a little over the difficult V's.

"Authorization code not recognized," the computer chirped.

Chekov felt his eyebrow twitch. He glanced up and saw Hikaru looking determinedly down at his console, but he could see from the twitch of his mouth that the pilot was biting the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. But since he wasn't saying anything, then Chekov wouldn't have to say anything about the parking brake incident, as he mentally decided to call it from now on.

"Ensign Authorization code: nine… five… wictor… wictor… two," Chekov tried again, speaking as slowly and clearly as he could. This time the computer beeped in acceptance and Chekov began his announcement, explaining what little was known of the situation on Vulcan. When that was done, he got back to work making sure the ship was on course.

And that's when a blonde wearing all black rather than a colorful cadet uniform exploded onto the bridge, shouting about how they were racing towards a trap. Uhura was with him, and she seemed to be backing up Kirk's story as she mentioned some transmissions she had intercepted. Pike was clearly impressed, and soon had her on the bridge since she could apparently distinguish between the Vulcan and Romulan languages (a rather impressive feat, Chekov had to admit).

It was painfully clear that they should all be prepared for an attack when they arrived at Vulcan. There was dead silence on the bridge, silence except for Hikaru counting down the time until they dropped out of warp. Then there was a moment of pure silence as they took in the sight of several destroyed ships. Then their own ship was rocked by a powerful explosion.

Everyone hit the floor. Hikaru was one of the first back into his chair. Pike tried to right himself. "Sulu! Status!" he barked.

"We can't take another hit like that!" Hikaru exclaimed, fingers racing over the controls, trying to determine how badly they were hit. Chekov managed to regain his seat next to the pilot.

Then the face of a Romulan appeared on the screen, demanding to speak to Ambassador Spock. The commander in question looked puzzled, seeing as he wasn't an ambassador at all. The Romulan seemed upset by this, and demanded Pike as a hostage instead. Pike agreed to the terms and gave the conn to Chekov before hurrying off with Kirk, Spock, and Hikaru, leaving Chekov to bite his nails.

Hikaru Sulu was riding high on an adrenaline rush. He'd been a little worried about having to work next to the young navigator during the mission, but the sheer chaos that had erupted around him had banished all of those anxieties from his mind.

A plan was coming together remarkably fast. Pike would head to the Romulan ship. They couldn't use the transporter because something was blocking it on a drill. Kirk, Sulu, and an engineer named Olson would be parachuting down to the drill to disable it and regain the use of their transporter. Somehow all this resulted in Kirk being promoted to First Officer while Pike was gone, much to the barely-controlled annoyance of Commander Spock.

The trio waited until the right time to parachute. Kirk glanced over at the impassive Sulu. "What combat training do you have?" he asked.

Sulu simply smirked. "Fencing." And then he enjoyed the look of disbelief on Kirk's face. There was no time for further conversation as they leapt from the craft, plummeting towards the surface of Vulcan and the towering drill. Kirk and Sulu pulled their chutes at almost the exact same time, but Olson just kept plummeting. The wind roared in Sulu's ears, nearly whipping away Kirk's frantic screams for Olson to open his chute. Finally the young man opened his chute, but it was much too late… he slammed into the drill and there was a horrible crack… Olson managed a scream as one of his legs snapped like a dry twig, then he was whipped around… right into a plume of fire that incinerated him in an instant, ending his suffering. Sulu felt himself gag, but he couldn't give into sickness now.

Kirk landed started fighting a Romulan guard at once. Sulu skidded across the surface of the platform, nearly falling off and into the flames to repeat Olson's fate, but his chute caught onto something solid and he hit the retractor like his life depended on it, which it did! Not even stopping to recover his breath, he pulled out a collapsible foil and flew at another Romulan, knocking him into flames and incinerating him. Seeing that Kirk had fallen off the edge of the drill and was clinging there for his life while another Romulan stood over him, Sulu ran like mad to get there in time. He stabbed the Romulan through the chest and tossed him off the drill and lunged for Kirk, managing to grab the blonde's hand.

Kirk was gasping, his blue eyes snapping with the adrenaline rush. "Where are the chargers?" he gasped.

"Olson had them," Sulu said furiously, feeling just a twinge of guilt over his angry feelings toward the recently-deceased cadet. Kirk just shrugged and pulled out his phaser, and Sulu copied him. They fired their phasers at the drill and were relieved to hear a tremendous groaning of metal, indicating that their mission was a success. Then both watched in puzzlement as something fell from the drill, plunging to the surface of the planet far below.

Suddenly the whole drill heaved to one side. Both cadets screamed and swore as they tried to catch their balance, but Sulu suddenly found himself falling. His chute had been abandoned on the drill, so he was utterly helpless as he plunged to meet the planet's surface, but to his complete shock, Kirk hurled himself from the drill, free-falling towards Sulu just as fast as he could. Sulu stretched upward and managed to grab onto Kirk, pulling on Kirk's chute to deploy it, but something snapped and their free-fall continued unabated.

The red rocks of Vulcan were roaring up to meet them and Sulu wondered why in the hell his life wasn't flashing before his eyes like it always did to those characters in movies and books.

And then they slammed into a metal floor. All the breath was knocked from Sulu's lungs as he lay there, wondering why the hell being dead hurt so damn much. That is, until he heard someone shouting in Russian, and Sulu realized that the metal floor belonged to the transporter of the Enterprise and there stood Pavel, who was practically laughing with relief.

"I told you I could do zat!" he was almost screaming, his whole body quivering as he stood at the controls of the transporter.

Sulu rolled onto his stomach and looked over at the blonde next to him, who looked just as stunned and winded as Sulu felt. "Thanks," Sulu gasped. Kirk just nodded.

Spock barely even acknowledged them as he strode to the transporter. "The surface of the planet is collapsing. I must find the elders." And with that, he was gone.

Sulu finally felt capable of standing, so he did so. He couldn't help but smile when he noticed Pavel grinning at him. Kirk also staggered to his feet and they both leaned against the wall, trying desperately to catch their breath after the adrenaline rush and punishing fall. Sulu tilted his head back so it rested against the wall, blocking out all the sounds around him and trying to get his breathing back to normal.

When he opened his eyes again, Pavel was staring at the screen, desperately trying to track someone. But Sulu could tell from the darting eyes and shaking hands that Pavel was having some trouble. He could hear the teenager's breathing rate increase even from several feet away.

"Nyet… nyet…" he whispered. Then his voice rose as he worked frantically. "I'm losing her, I'm losing her!" he cried, and the panic in his voice seemed to cut into Sulu.

And then Spock appeared, along with several Vulcan elders, including a man who could only be Spock's father… and Spock's hand was outstretched, reaching for someone who did not make it, and the normally expressionless countenance on the Academy instructor's face was now etched with grief, horror, stunned disbelief, and so much pain. And right in his line of sight stood Pavel, hands still poised on the screen, eyes wide with shock and fear. And then Spock turned away to the rest of the Vulcan elders, and Pavel fled the room.

A/N: Hm, so there was that… this seemed to be as good a time as any to end this chapter that has plagued me for well over a month. Next chapter I will finish the movie and leave that behind, and hopefully get on to angsty goodness.