Midnight (Present)
Jim was awake. His eyes were wide in the dark, his back flat on cool, pristine sheets.
Moments of his life flitted in his mind like the last reels of an antiquated film, a clicking black-and-white movie that popped and sparked its final slides which read "THE END" and then whipped off the palate, leaving the viewer sitting in stunned reintroduction to the real world.
He saw himself as a child, his mother hugging his limp, confused body as she spilled whispered words, I love you, I love you, Jim, you know that, don't you? not staying to hear his answer.
He watched her board the starshuttle, trying desperately to remember the back of her blonde head as the gangplank sucked shut and she zipped away for who knows how long.
His eyes climbed with her to the sky and he felt the distance of space.
He saw himself as a reckless, unruly young man, getting booked by the Riverside police.
Citizen, what is your Name.
He watched Captain Pike confront him in the Photonic. It was easy to pick himself out: the pathless boy with armor made from shanks of anger.
He saw himself in smiling audacity as he alone conquered the Kobayashi Maru.
He saw award ceremonies and battles, celebrations on alien planets and voyages that never seemed to end. He saw friends formed from enemies and enemies defeated for friends. He saw nights that dragged on for far too long by the bedsides of those he cared for. He saw exploration and brilliant science. He saw himself smiling.
He saw his career at Starfleet and all it ever meant for him. He saw that it was everything.
At S-0400 hours, he and his crew: Nyota Uhura, Pavel Chekov, Montgomery Scott, Hikaru Sulu, Christine Chapel, and faithful Dr McCoy, would enact the plan hatched between their collective genius.
They and the Enterprise would be illicitly spacebound an hour afterwards.
Starfleet was suddenly going to vanish.
He found he didn't care.