"What's wrong?" Harry asked, "So, you have a crush, I don't see why it's such a big deal."
"I've never liked a man before, I don't know how to flirt with a man!" Tom said.
"I'm sure there's no difference between flirting with a man than a woman."
"How would you know? You're not very skilled in either."
Harry slapped Tom on the arm and shook his head, "I've been stuck in the Delta Quadrant for the past seven years, I haven't had any chance to actually flirt."
Tom raised an eyebrow at Harry, "Never mind that, what should I do?"
"If you are unsure about how to flirt with a man talk to someone who's had success."
"Like?"
"Uhh… Last I heard Lieutenant Commander Data and La Forge are in a very serious relationship and you've heard the rumors about Captain Kirk and Commander Spock."
"I'm not going to walk up to Captain Kirk and ask him about his love life."
"You're the one who wanted advice."
"Yeah, good advice."
"Who knows, maybe just flirting like you usually would will work."
ဝ
"When did you decided to become a doctor?" Kathryn asked.
"When I was little my grandmother used to teach me about herbalism."
"Was she a doctor?"
"No, but she was our town's… 'medical practitioner'. If anyone got sick they went to her."
"Did you spend a lot of time with her?"
"My parents were killed when I was a little kid."
"Oh," Kathryn said, they had stopped walking and she had lightly rested her hand on Beverly's forearm, "I'm sorry, I didn't…"
"You're fine," Beverly smiled slightly before sighing, "I'm fine… It's been so long that I… I don't really remember them well anymore."
Kathryn couldn't think of anything to say to that except, "I'm really sorry."
"You don't have to apologize, you didn't upset me."
Kathryn nodded, but didn't say anything as they started walking again. It was dark out, a few minutes or so before dawn. Kathryn had woken up early, whether out of habit or discomfort she didn't know. But she found herself walking around the area exploring, but she was always within eyesight of the camp. Before long she was joined by Beverly and they has started exploring the huge hills that were to the left of the campsite.
They scaled the hill, coming to the top of it just as the sun started to come up across the horizon.
They stood still staring to the horizon as the sun came up. They were entranced by the beauty, the colors of purple, blue and green, all fading from one to another.
Before long and the sun was finally up.
"I've missed this," Beverly said.
"Hmm?"
"You don't really see many real sunsets on a starship."
"Yeah," Kathryn nodded, "I've missed it too."
They turned back towards camp, half of it was in the shade of the large hill the other half was in direct sunlight. Some of the people in the light had started to stir, others were already awake. In fact all of the captains had started talking with one another. Half of the first officers were up and patrolling around to make sure nothing had happened in the night.
ဝ
"We need to start heading back to the Enterprise." Jean-Luc said, his arms crossed, staring off into the distance.
The other captains nodded.
"What if we take a handful at a time to the Enterprise, so we're not all trying to get in one at a time," Jonathan suggested.
"We'll need to split up, to... divide and conquer," Benjamin said matter-of-factly, "We know the direction of the ship, but we don't know where, If we split up we can find it quicker."
Jim put his hands on his hips and started talking, "We can split up by crew-"
"No," Benjamin quickly jumped in, "We can't have a team if we split up by crew. Besides, there is a crew complement of 1,014 for the Enterprise while the defiant has a crew of 150. We need to distribute them equally. We need to start integrating each other."
"We should start moving by noon, Spock said that a day here is three hours shorter than one on Earth. We have less time to work with."
"How long till noon?" Jonathan asked.
"Spock said around two hours. We need to get everyone organized and ready to go."
"I'll brief the senior staff," Kathryn said, "Captain Sisko, give an announcement to the crews, you can take Captain Picard with you. Captain Kirk, Captain Archer, you guys could inventory the crates, make sure that we have everything we need and see if there would be anything in any of them that would help us find or reach the Enterprise."
Jean-Luc tensed up slightly, but he kept his mouth shut.
"After we each complete are respective tasks we'll meet up back here," Jonathan said, "And figure out how we're going to divide our crews equally."
"Also," Jean-Luc said, "Remember to brief them of the living situation."
"On the living situation," Kathryn said, "What are we going to do about Seven?"
"The Borg?" Jean-Luc asked to clarify.
"Ex-borg." Kathryn snapped, "She needs to sleep in her borg alcove to regenerate."
"She'll have to sleep at Voyager until we move it," Jean-Luc said.
"How soon?"
"A week."
"I'll stay with her until she can move," Kathryn nodded, "But this means we need to find Voyager as well."
"We'll use Enterprise's sensors," Jean-Luc said.
"Okay, it looks like we know what's going on," Benjamin said, "Let's break."
ဝ
Kathryn walked to where the senior staff had set up camp. Currently, only half of the senior staffs were there. Most of the first officers were walking through the crowd to make sure no one got into a fight. The engineers were nerding over something to the side. Odo and Tuvok were talking about security on their ships and such. Harry and Data were talking about something as well. Everyone else was out socializing.
Kathryn tapped her combadge, "Captain Janeway to all senior staffs, immediately meet back up at the senior staff camp for a briefing, no need to respond to this message, Janeway out."
Within five minutes every senior staff was sitting down in a circle waiting for Kathryn to start speaking.
"We've decided that we're going to pack up and start heading for the Enterprise. We want to leave by noon. We're going to divide everyone into groups and we're going to start a search party for Enterprise. Also, there are only 1,020 quarters so 700 or so are going to have to share quarters. We want this to be on a volunteer basis, but I want you guys, the senior staff, um staffs, to lead by example. Any questions?"
Seven took a deep breath before starting to speak, "What about my Borg Alcove?"
"You and me will be going to Voyager to during the night, we'll use the transporters, but first we have to find Enterprise," Kathryn explained.
"Are we dividing by crews?" T'Pol asked.
"No, the Captains and I don't want there to be a division amongst our people, we went them to blend as seamlessly as possible, and we don't want to draw lines in between the crews."
"How are we going to divide up the people?" Kira asked.
Kathryn bit her lip, not liking that someone asked a question that she didn't have an answer for, "We don't know yet."
ဝ
"So…" Jim sighed as he walked out of the perimeter of the camp, "You're the man who started the Federation."
Jonathan paused and looked over to Jim,"Am I?"
"Did I just…" Jim asked, clenching his jaw shut.
"Yeah, I'm not that far," Jonathan replied.
"Where are you?"
"We just stopped the anti-alien movement on Earth."
"Okay," Jim nodded, "I won't spoil anything else, promise."
"How far in the future are you?" Jonathan asked as they climbed a small hill.
"Uh, about a hundred years or so."
"What's it like?"
"Well, that's kind of a broad question," Jim sighed, shrugging, "What do you want to know?"
"Do the Vulcan's still have a huge say in Starfleet?"
"No."
They continued on their way until they reached the crates. They had beamed the crates of food, water, and first aid down in such a rush that they didn't have time to pick a place to plan a camp around. There were about 500 crates. Each of them filled with essentials that each ship didn't want destroyed in the crash.
"Captain…" Jonathan said, a weird feeling twisting in his stomach, a feeling that had been present when he got here, but only grown stronger since, "How do we know you are who you say you are?"
Jim paused, he didn't know what to say to that, "Captain?"
"How do I know you're really from my future?" Jonathan asked, "For all I know, this is a Suliban trick."
Jim thought for a minute about how he was going to answer this question, but there was a small suspicion in the back of his head that he wouldn't be able to explain so that Jonathan knew without a shadow of a doubt that these people were real. But then again, something seemed to twitch in his own mind…
"Even if I'm not who I say I am, we have to work together if we want to survive, it doesn't matter if this is a lie because we're still in this together. There is nothing that I can do to convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt. We can't start doubting the only people we have to trust."
Jonathan clenched his jaw, thinking through his options. He looked out into the sky before looking at Jim's deep brown eyes before letting out a deep breath.
"You're right," He let out a sigh, before getting to work.
ဝ
"All you have to say is 'I think you're cute, want to go on a date?'" Harry sighed.
"No. It's not that simple," Tom said running a hand through his blond hair and resting it on his neck.
"Look, if you're not going to take my advice maybe you should just stop complaining to me," Harry said crossing his arms.
"Maybe you should give better advice than 'talk to him'."
"Sure, don't talk to him and hope that he miraculously can hear your thoughts instead."
"Shut up," Tom sighed, "I don't know what to do."
"Well it's a good thing I do," Harry sighed, "Follow me." He started walking in the opposite direction.
Tom narrowed his eyes, but followed Harry nonetheless.
ဝ
Jonathan walked up to T'Pol after getting back from the supplies.
"I know you have your doubts," Jonathan said, letting out a quick sigh. He opened his mouth to continue speaking but was interrupted.
"The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible."
Jonathan paused what he was going to say and just shook his head, mouth slightly agape, "You've been back in time…"
"A one time occurrence is not enough to dismiss multiple studies."
Jonathan just looked at her once more, "You have been back in time… Twice," Doing the same thing multiple times.
"Both in extraneous circumstances, we have not done studies to test what actually happened."
Jonathan sighed but shook his head, "I know you have your doubts, be we have to trust them. We…" He looked up and saw Jim talking with a hand on Spock's shoulder, "Can trust them."
T'Pol looked over to Jim, then to Sisko who had just shared a laugh with Jadzia, then to Jean-Luc who was smiling at Will and finally to Kathryn who was talking with Beverly and finally back to Jonathan, "Captain…"
"What choice do we have, T'Pol?" Jonathan said, "We can't do this alone and they haven't tried to kill us and they seem to follow the same rules and laws."
T'Pol seemed to think over her options, before long she seemed to sigh, "You make a very logical argument."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment, it was a fact."
"Doesn't matter, just… make sure the crew all knows that they have to trust them, I don't want to see any problems."
"Yes, Captain."
"They need to understand that we can't have a riot here."
"Yes, Captain."
"Thank you."
ဝ
The Captains all met up at the campsite.
"I think we're ready to go," Kathryn said.
"Hold on," Jim said, stepping forward, "I think we need to talk about something…" He looked over to Jonathan before back to the rest of the group, "Some people have expressed their… concerns with whether or not we're being truthful with who we say we are. We need some… way to prove our trust worthiness or so forth."
"You're right," Jean-Luc jumped in, "Captain Janeway, Captain Sisko and I know Q and we have a sort of trust in his trustlessness that you've never had the chance to establish. So we come into the situation knowing him, knowing what he's capable of and knowing each other. You guys don't have that."
"We need some way to build the trust," Jonathan agreed clapping his hand together.
"Team building challenge?" Kathryn asked.
Benjamin shook his head, running his hands across his jaw, "We each need to sacrifice something meaningful to each of us."
"But the object needs to be something decided by the four other captains to make sure it's meaningful," Jim replied.
Kathryn scanned the horizon thoughtfully, "We could bury the objects." The captains looked over at her, thinking over this proposition.
"It needs to be more permanent than that," Benjamin replied, shaking his head once again, "There has to be no way for us to retrieve the items, no way to… break the trust."
"Phase pistol," Jonathan said quickly after.
"Is there any object off-limits?" Jean-Luc asked.
"Family photos," Benjamin quickly jumped, he wasn't losing his only connection to Jake and Jennifer.
Jean-Luc hesitated for a second, making sure everyone had a time to think about this before asking, "Agreed?" He looked around to the others in the circle.
"Agreed," Each captain replied simultaneously.
ဝ
The first captain who had to sacrifice something was Captain Archer: they decided that they would go by year. They walked to where he kept his things from the Enterprise, returning with objects from his quarters and ready room. He had a bottle of Andorian ale, given to him by Shran, the medal from a water polo tournament from his last game on the team, and an assortment of other items and trinkets. He set them down in front of the captains and turned his back not wanting to watch as they chose what was to be destroyed.
The Captains mulled over the objects before Kathryn asked, "What's the story behind the bottle of ale?"
"Andorian ale," Jonathan corrected, before sighing, "There is an Andorian named Shran, he's my… my…" he couldn't think of the right thing to say about Shran, besides, he didn't feel close enough to any of them to say what he was really feeling, "He's a great man, I, uh, am really close to him."
"And this?" Benjamin asked, pointing to the medal.
ဝ
The captains discussed the objects for a bit before they made up their mind. Finally deciding on on the object to be destroyed.
Benjamin picked up the ale and put it on a nearby boulder. He walked back over to Jonathan and held out his phaser, "Care to do the honors?"
Jonathan shook his head, "I've got my own," he pulled out his phase pistol, clenching his teeth hard before aiming it at the ale. He took in a deep breath and shot the ale into oblivion.
ဝ
In the end Jim had to destroy a book that Spock got for him, Jean-Luc had to destroy a flute, Benjamin destroyed the baseball that sat on his desk and Kathryn destroyed a picture of the millennium gate.
Then they arranged everyone into teams. They ended up separating everyone into groups of their rank then they divided each rank into five groups, by the end they had equal teams.
They all went off into different directions. They knew the general direction that the ship was in and the few tricorders that were brought were not strong enough to give them a real direction to look for them. So they split up and took off around noon, knowing they only had about five hours until sunset.
ဝ
"Hey," Tom said, remembering from earlier, "What were you going to show me?"
"Hmm?" Harry asked.
"You know, before we all split up by rank."
"Oh, right," Harry said, remembering his plan, "I was going to take you to go talk to Lieutenant Commander Data and LaForge, ask how they got together."
"Really?" Tom asked, "Come on. What advice could they give?"
"You said yourself, you felt it was different flirting with a man than a woman and here is the perfect opportunity to learn," Harry reasoned, shaking his head as he had to step over a huge log.
"I guess," Tom dragged out his words, hesitant to agree.
"But lucky for you I have an even better idea," Harry said, looking over to Tom with a proud smile.
"Do you?"
"Follow me, we're going to have to walk ahead if we're going to do this," Harry replied before taking off on a run to get ahead.
Tom sighed, rolled his eyes, but took off after him nonetheless.
ဝ
"Jim," Spock asked, beginning to walk level to Jim, "What were you and the other captains shooting at before we divided into groups?"
"I don't believe that everyone fully… trusts one another, so each of sacrificed something of meaning to prove our loyalty."
"What did you sacrifice?"
"Do you... remember the book you got me on my last birthday?"
"I see."
"Don't be upset…"
"I am vulcan, I do not have emotions."
"Not even for me?" Jim asked, a slight smile creeping onto his face.
Spock eyed Jim before holding out his index and middle finger to him. Jim smiled and pressed his fingers to Spock's. They both felt a jolt of electric love sing through their fingers.
"I believe you are aware of the answer to that question," Spock said, his voice near monotone, but he was right, Jim knew the answer, "I will have to get you another book," Spock continued before looking forward again.
ဝ
"I'm sorry," Beverly said, catching up to Kathryn.
"For what?"
"I heard that all the captains had to sacrifice an important object to them and I assume what you lost wasn't fun to lose."
"It was a picture of the millennium gate, my family had a story that one of our relatives was a leading scientist in developing it, but that story wasn't true."
"Was it a picture from back when it was first built?"
"Yep," Kathryn replied.
"I'm sorry."
"No need to be, we all destroyed very important things to us."
"Why?"
"Some people we're having trouble trusting others and Captain Sisko decided this was a quick but meaningful way to prove our trustworthiness and we all agreed."
"I hope that the doubt dies away," Beverly said.
"Me too."
ဝ
"I still don't trust them," Malcolm sighed, "Look, just because each captain destroyed something meaningful to them doesn't mean they aren't lying through their teeth."
"If Captain Archer says we can trust them, then we can trust them," Hoshi replied.
"It's not like I'm saying that we should rebell, or anything like that, I'm just saying, let's not blindly trust them."
"And what if it comes to that?"
"Comes to what?"
"What if this distrust comes to rebelling?"
"It's not like I'm jumping the gun, I'm just saying we don't know these people, for all we know they could be suliban!"
"Would you go against Captain Archer?"
"Look…"
"Would you go against Captain Archer?"
"I don't know."
ဝ
Benjamin walked along in the forest, enjoying the sounds of the wildlife and the wind in the trees. He hadn't been on a hike in sometime and some part of this was enjoyable.
They had been searching for nearly three hours.
"Excuse me, Captain," Seven of Nine said, moving to be level with Benjamin.
Benjamin clenched his jaw and felt a tightening in his chest, "Yes." His voice was rough.
"I was wondering if I could scout ahead of the main group, my optic implant allows me to see farther-."
"No," Benjamin replied a little too quickly, he could feel the tension in his voice and tried to relax it, he opened his mouth to speak but Seven had already started talking.
"Would you rather me direct the group from here?"
Benjamin took in a deep breath and opened his mouth, "No, please fall back into the group."
Seven quirked an eyebrow, "Yes, Captain." She walked away and moved back into the group.
Something didn't seem to sit right in Benjamin's stomach, as if something had started to claw away at his consciousness but he didn't have time to think about it because…
"Captain Picard to all other Captains, stay where you are, we have just found Enterprise and we will beam you aboard."
ဝ
"Here you are," Harry said, stopping before he tapped on Travis' shoulder.
There was a mortified look in Tom's face as Travis span around to see Tom, as Harry had got lost in the crowd.
"Yes?" Travis asked.
"I was… um… I was going to, uh, ask if you'd um… like to go for dinner some time?" Tom spat out, closing his eyes as he asked Travis.
Travis just smiled a huge smile before responding, "Yes, that'd be nice."
ဝ
Two hours later and a majority of the systems were back on and the sun was setting. Kathryn, Seven and Jean-Luc were in the transporter room. Seven and Kathryn were on the transporter pad and Jean-Luc was at the station, getting ready to transport them over.
"Just contact the bridge when you're ready to be transported back or if you need anything," Jean-Luc explained "See you in the morning." He started pressing buttons when the door opened to the transporter room.
Benjamin walked into the room, looking over to Seven.
"Can I talk to Seven of Nine for a minute?" Benjamin asked. Seven quirked an eyebrow and looked to Kathryn as she nodded.
Seven unclasped her hands from behind her back and walked off the transporter and over to where Benjamin was standing. He walked out of the room and Seven followed after.
"I wanted to apologize for earlier. I treated you unfairly because of my experiences and you don't deserve it. You will have a hard enough time as it is and I should not be one of the people who are making it difficult. I am sorry."
"You are forgiven," Seven replied, nodding curtly, "Thank you for apologizing." Seven turned to go back into the transporter room.
"And Seven," Benjamin added, "If you think I'm treating you unfairly, call me out on it."
"Yes, Captain," She replied as she walked back into the transporter room.