Chapter 4

(Here's a chappie to make you people happy)

Sector 12

"Hey clowny, how ya holdin up in there?" It was the hundredth time in which the idiotic captain of the prison ship George Kirk was in made fun of the uniform in which the captain had found him.

Soon after the wreck of the U.S.S. Kelvin sank under the waves of the unknown planet, George Kirk was gagged, blindfolded, and brought to a pirate warehouse. The ship that the wreck of the Kelvin hit was being chased by pirates, as it carried very expensive goods.

The pirates that caught up with them were not very kind to the crew. They shot all of the crewmembers, dumped their bodies into the sea, but not Kirk. The pirates found him and his uniform amusing, and toyed with him until the pirate's boss called for them.

Thankfully, Kirk hid his universal translator in a place where the pirates did not search for, but his excretory system remained painful for many days. The pirates, however, took everything else Kirk had on him, or his uniform, and gave him baggy clothes, eaten in many places.

Kirk had to thank his lucky stars that: A. His captors looked ridiculously human. B. His phaser pistol sank along with the Kelvin. Starfleet couldn't rip his ass to shreds, IF they ever found him.

What he couldn't thank for was the fact that he was basically the pet of all the pirates. They threw scraps of food stained with muck, but some careless pirates left their food trollies out where he could get them, and so he lived. Barely.

"I said, clowny, how are you holding up in there!" The repugnant captain roared. His cage was not exactly a hotel room either. Thankfully, there was no muck in the cage, as all four sides were made of iron bars. The cage hung in the air, and it was a favourite pastime of the pirate crew to taunt him while they had breaks.

"Fine." Kirk replied. "Well, ye ain't gonna be fine no more, cuz the Boss says to drop you off at the nearest station we can get. You're too much to feed, and…"

BOOM!

Red lights blared as the Captain of George Kirks torments landed face first into the floor. He quickly got up, and yelled to Kirk, "STAY THERE, SCRAWNY," and raced off.

Another vibration shook the ship, and cargo boxes piled near kirk fell. One box opened, and gracefully deposited a pistol into Kirk's box. Kirk could not believe his luck.

Another vibration, this one more powerful than the last, broke Kirk's cage open. Kirk scrambled out, and reached the box that contained the pistol. Sadly, there were no more guns left, as these pirates always feared a mutiny, but there was plenty of ammunition in the box.

George shoved the lead pieces down his baggy pockets, and hurridly shoved the bullets into the pistol, which was similar to the 21'st century pistols his father showed him how to use.

Legs buckling from days of constant disuse, Kirk hid in a few boxes, a pistol in hand, as more pirates ran into the room. He listened into their conversation.

"Damn Government! They somehow knew of our base! This is bull! I want to know which traitor told them about our base in sector 12, and why they sent a Battlestar to chase us down!" A voice shouted, inaudible to Kirk's ears. It was a question.

"Leroy, I don't care which Battlestar they sent, but looking at its obvious nameplate, it's the Archeron or Archer or someth… SHIT! THE CLOWN ESCAPED!"

Another BOOM heaved the vessel, and dislodged multiple crates, which landed on, and crushed, the Captain to his last breath. Kirk shoved his body out of the crates. There were twelve pirates in the room. He recognized all of them, and knew that they made up the entirety of this blasted vessel's crew.

"Obviously, the captain is dead. I have a gun. Right now, we all want to survive, so someone JUMP THE FRAK AWAY FROM HERE ALREADY! Any objections?"

The pirates looked at each other, and realizing that none of them had any weapons, dashed away into their respective stations. Kirk smiled, and walked over to the nearest porthole, limping.

The Captain was right. A giant hulk of metal, looking like a morphed salamander, slowly crawled towards his prison, firing its guns. Its missiles were too precious to waste.

Suddenly, a giant something appeared just beside the massive Battlestar. The gigantic being that materialized out of nowhere stood right behind the Battlestar, which quickly turned around, and started firing its guns.

Only for a few seconds. Kirk could see in astonishment, the mighty Battlestar had stopped firing its weapons. Why? Was it an ally?

As the pirate cargo ship jumped away, Kirk could see the giant vessel destroy the Battlestar with only a few missiles. He wondered, "How?"

Another Kirk was thinking only one thing. His and his crew's luck was one of the most confusing and stressing anomalies ever in the universe. After running away from the giant star-like ship, some of the bridge crew asked Kirk why they didn't blow the thing away with photon torpedoes. After Spock gave his long explanation, the crew just gave up, and left the past in the past.

Now, what the crew worried most was, "What do we do now?" Spock sat in his chair, eyes closed, in deep meditation. Sulu's eyes were trained on the viewscreen making sure that the ship was not careening itself into a random sun. Uhura sat in her chair, vainly searching for any frequencies of languages recognizable in Starfleet. No luck so far. Her final declaration was that the species that attacked them used simple radios for communication, and that their dialect was close to ancient Greek.

Bones was stuck in Sickbay, taking care of the wounded, while his assistants covered the dead crewmembers. James Tiberius Kirk was almost begging for a miracle.

In all of Starfleet history, he did not think any ship was ever stranded in another universe, with no discernable form of Starfleet not far behind. Prime Spock told him of the times in which his crew traveled through time, but in their case there was always a way to get back home. They did not.

Kirk asked Sulu, in almost a desperate tone, "Sulu, direct the ship into the nearest space station you can find. Spock, help him find a space station that has lifeforms that resemble any species that Starfleet knows about."

Spock looked at him, expressionless. "Captain, our five year mission was to…"

Kirk looked at him. "I know what our mission is, Spock! But our mission always had us somehow coming back home with the news of discovering other species. What is the point if we don't have a route back home?"

"It is logical to think…" "Oh boy, here we go again…" Kirk groaned.

Sulu spoke. "Captain, I've found a space station, and it has none of the configurations of the ship that attacked us. It's around a whole system of planets, which, from my calculations, look a lot like Earth."

Spock went back to his station, and assuaged Kirk's fears. "The scans say that the entire planet is populated by, what I am surprised by, humans."

Kirk whirled around on Spock. "So, we could just be in another time of humanity. That's a relief. We could find the new Vulcan colony around here then…"

Spock was about to contradict Kirk, and to say that the system the planets were situated in did not resemble Earth's, when Sulu stated, "We are arriving in 3, 2, 1…