An hour later, they staggered into the Starfleet outpost, which was little more than a prefabbed colony main building of the sort Erica had seen in her studies of early Earth spaceflight. Erica was freezing- she was surprised she didn't have icicles on her nose.
A little alien came up to them. He wore a brown jumpsuit and had a very spiky head, like a desert lizard. His eyes were black mirrors that betrayed no emotion. The little alien nodded, turned around, and walked away. Shrugging, Erica followed him.
The alien led them to a sleeping man in a black hat and heavy brown jacket. Erica hung back behind Kirk and Spock Prime, although Spock Prime looked at her funny when she did that. The alien shook the man, and Kirk took care of introductions. "Hello?"
The man woke up and sat up to reveal big, comically expressive blue eyes set in a round face sporting an indignant look. He spoke in an angry Scottish accent. "What? You realize how unacceptable this is?"
Spock Prime raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating."
"What? Okay, I am sure you're just doing your job here, but could ye no' have come a wee bit sooner? Six months I've been here. Living off Starfleet protein nips and the promise of a good meal. And I know exactly what's goin' on here, okay? Punishment, isn't it? Ongoing. For something that was clearly an accident." Erica stuffed a fist in her mouth. This guy was hilarious!
Spock Prime tilted his head. "You are Montgomery Scott."
Kirk frowned. "You know him?"
Montgomery Scott nodded and interrupted. "Aye, that's me, ye're in the right place. Unless there's another hard-working, equally starved Starfleet officer around?"
Erica raised her hand- she really was quite hungry. "Me." Montgomery Scott peeked around Kirk and Spock, and Erica shifted as she imagined what he'd see- a short girl with short blonde hair and glasses covering startlingly green eyes, shivering uncontrollably.
"And who might you be, lassie?"
Erica stepped forwards and extended a trembling hand. "E-Erica R-Reed, sir. N-nice to m-m-meet you." She normally didn't talk like that, but she was so cold her teeth were chattering.
The Scotsman shook Erica's hand in a warm grip. "Call me Scotty; sir makes me feel old! Let's get a few sandwiches in you." Erica smiled up at Scotty. He seemed pretty nice.
The alien raised his hand. "Me."
Scotty reacted differently. "Get aff! Shut up. Ye don't eat anything. Ye can eat like, a bean, and you're done. I'm talking about food, real food. But ye're here now. So, thank you, where is it?"
Spock Prime leaned forwards. "You are in fact the Mr. Scott who postulated the theory of transwarp beaming?"
Scotty nodded. "That's what I'm talking about. How'd ya think I wound up here? I had a little debate with my instructor on the issue of relativistic physics and how it pertains to subspace travel. He seemed to think that the range of transporting something like a... like a grapefruit, was limited to about 100 miles."
Erica giggled. "I don't believe that. This next bit is legend among the engineering cadets. He said he could not only beam a grapefruit from one planet to the adjacent planet in the same system-"
Scotty interrupted. "Which is easy, by the way-"
Erica smiled. "He also said he could do it with a life form. So he tested it out on Porthos."
Kirk frowned. "Isn't that Admiral Archer's prize beagle? I know that dog. What happened to it?"
Scotty looked at Kirk, completely deadpan. "I'll tell you when it reappears. I don't know- I do feel guilty about that." Erica giggled.
Spock Prime almost smiled. "What if I told you that your transwarp theory was correct? That it is indeed possible to beam aboard a ship that is traveling at warp speed?"
Scotty looked at Spock Prime skeptically. "I think if that equation had been discovered, I'd have heard about it."
If Vulcans smiled, Spock Prime would have. "The reason you haven't heard of it, Mr. Scott, is because you and Erica haven't discovered it yet."
Scotty's jaw dropped. "Are you from the future?"
Kirk nodded. "Yeah, he is, Velma and I aren't."
Erica glared. "Don't call me Velma."
Scotty just smiled. "Well, that's brilliant. Do they still have sandwiches there?"
Erica's stomach growled. "Speaking of sandwiches, I could kill for a soy grilled cheese."
Scotty smiled. "Then what do you say we go get you some, Erica?" He led her off, chatting with her the whole way.
Spock Prime smiled. "And that, Jim, is the beginning of a beautiful relationship."
Kirk's jaw dropped. "Wait… you mean where you're from, they're married?"
"Yes."
"Were they like that where you're from?"
"I believe that you would say they were worse." Kirk shook his head. After that little display of fluff, he found it hard to believe they could be any sweeter.
Then, he grinned. Oh, he was going to have such fun with this.
Kirk, Spock Prime, Scotty, and Erica walked into a room with an old shuttle. Erica gasped. "Dang, you really have been here a long time. I thought my instructors were joking when they told me how ugly those things were."
Scotty smiled bashfully, and Erica couldn't help but smile back. "Well, she is a wee bit dodgy. Shield emitters are totally banjaxed-"
"And the impulse engines haven't been tuned in oh, 20 years?"
"As well as a few other things." Scotty stood to the side of the door and extended his arm like an old-fashioned doorman. "Well, in you go." Kirk and Spock Prime looked at each other dubiously then stepped into the old shuttle. Scotty and Erica brought up the rear, with Scotty chattering the whole way. "So, the Enterprise has had its maiden voyage, has it? She is one well-endowed lady. I'd like to get my hands on her ample nacelles, if you'd pardon me engineering parlance."
Erica giggled. "That is not any engineering parlance that I've heard of." Kirk looked at Erica. She was never this chatty!
Scotty smiled. "It's still true!" Then he turned to the men. "Except, the thing is, even if I believed you, where you're from, what Erica and I've done- which I don't, by the way- you're still talking about beaming aboard the Enterprise while she's traveling faster than light without a proper receiving pad." He noticed the little brown alien on a framework for something. "Get off there! It's not a climbing frame." Erica gently reached up and helped him down. "The notion of transwarp beaming is like…" Scotty frowned, searching for the right words.
The metaphor Scotty was looking for popped through Erica's mind, and she spoke before she could stop herself. "Like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet, while blindfolded and riding a horse?"
Kirk gaped. Scotty smiled. "Exactly!"
Spock Prime was over at a console, inputting a command sequence. Scotty and Erica meandered over. "What's that?" Scotty had to lean over Erica's shoulder to get a closer glance.
Erica spoke. "Looks like our equation for transwarp beaming." Scotty jumped- he hadn't realized how close he'd gotten to Erica. She hadn't noticed. "Brilliant. Um, Mr. Spock, could I see?" Spock Prime got out of the way, and Erica took his place. Scotty stood where Erica had been. "I played around with the algorithms you used to make Porthos disappear, trying to refine them. This actually looks pretty similar."
Ordinarily, Scotty would have felt a bit of indignation and jealousy at someone using his work. But he only felt a surge of admiration and curiosity for Miss Erica Reed. "What did you do?"
"I treated space as the independent variable instead of the matter stream."
Scotty smiled at her. "That's brilliant. Never really occurred to me. I guess Spock was right after all. We did discover the equation for transwarp beaming. "
Behind them, unbeknownst to both, Kirk smiled. He could already see the sparks of mutual attraction forming between the ebullient Scotsman and the shy genius. He would just do his level best to… help them along. He hopped onto the transporter pad, and Scotty and Erica followed him. Then, he realized Spock Prime hadn't followed him. "You're coming with us, right?"
Spock Prime shook his head. "No, Jim. That is not my destiny."
Kirk frowned- he'd spent most of his time in Temporal Mechanics 101 napping. Probably not the best idea, in retrospect. "Your dest… He- the other Spock is not going to believe me. Only you can explain what the hell has happened."
"Under no circumstances can he be made aware of my own existence. You must promise me this."
Erica nodded- she could understand why. It was hard to explain, but her gut just went against it.
Kirk's confusion grew with every word Spock Prime spoke. "You're telling me that I can't tell you that I'm following your own orders? Why not? What happens?"
Spock Prime stonewalled Kirk. "Jim, this is one rule you cannot break. To stop Nero, you alone must take command of your ship."
Kirk frowned. "How, over your dead body?"
"Preferably not. However, there is Starfleet Regulation 619. 619 states that any commanding officer who is emotionally compromised by the mission at hand must resign said command."
Kirk frowned. "So you're saying I have to emotionally compromise you… guys?"
Spock Prime raised an eyebrow. "Jim, I just lost my planet. I can tell you, I am emotionally compromised. What you must do is get me to show it."
Scotty nodded, sensing the discussion was over. "Aye then, you two, live or die, let's get this over with." He gently pushed the little brown alien off the pad. "No, you cannae come with me. Go on."
Kirk smiled, and Erica saw a little of his familiar reckless attitude. "You know, coming back in time, changing history, that's cheating."
Spock Prime smiled. "A trick I learned from an old friend." He raised his left hand in the Vulcan salute as the transporter beam surrounded Erica, Scotty, and Kirk. "Live long and prosper."
