Annie made her way back to her dorm room. When she arrived, she paused for a moment to look at the bed that used to be Sarah's. It had been a couple years since Sarah had left the Academy to become a dancer. Annie had never resented her decision until now. What she wanted more than anything was her friend back to talk her through all of this. But instead she dressed back in her blue Starfleet uniform and headed to the transport bay.
Bones and Jim headed straight for Admiral Marcus's office.
"You can't go in there," his secretary insisted. "Admiral Marcus isn't seeing anyone today." Jim paused to get a good look at the girl. But remembering the task at hand, turned and blew past her to throw open the door. Bones followed wordlessly.
"I told my secretary I wasn't to be disturbed," Marcus growled without looking up.
"All due respect sir, but I don't really care right now," Jim replied. Bones was shocked by the fire in his voice and glancing at the admiral, he noticed the man was surprised as well.
"And just who do you think you are, kid?" He asked, leaning back in his chair.
"Captain James T. Kirk, sir, of the USS Enterprise," he replied.
"Well Kirk, do you have any idea who I am?" He sneered.
"Yes sir, that's why we came to talk to you," he tried to keep his temper to himself. "I'm here to request that Lieutenant Cassidy not be sent on the USS Encounter today."
"And why the hell not?" The admiral insisted.
"She is assigned to my ship, sir, which makes her a part of my crew. Starfleet regulation mandates that crew members can only be transferred with the approval of their captain, that's me," Jim explained. "And quite frankly sir, I don't approve." Both men were surprised when the admiral smirked a little.
"Starfleet regulations only applies to people, son, human or alien but people. Lieutenant Cassidy is more like a highly humanized weapon," he countered. Bones felt his nails dig into his palms in an effort to stop himself from attacking his superior officer. Jim had no such intentions of keeping his emotions in check.
"Excuse me, sir, but that's bullshit," he angrily shot back. "She is just as much a human as each if us in this room. You cannot just treat her like property!" He slammed his fist on the desk and leaned in to stare the admiral in the eye.
"Jim," Leonard whispered warningly. He may have felt the same way but he didn't want to see his friend get into any more trouble.
"Listen son, unless you want Lieutenant Cassidy off your ship permanently, you will leave my office right now!" He roared. Jim fought with himself for a moment but decided not to push his luck. He feared making things worse for his friend.
"Let's go Jim," Leonard finally spoke up, reaching a hand out to grab his shoulder.
"Oh and for the record, then next time you both come storming into my office in your nightwear, I will have you thrown out of Starfleet. Good day gentlemen," the admiral sneered one last time as Jim and Leonard were ushered out of the office. Finally allowing his emotions to show, Leonard punched the first wall he found.
When Annie's transport landed on the Encounter, she was surprised to be met with four security officers and a very apologetic looking nurse. Upon closer inspection, Annie realized she recognized the nurse.
"Christine?" She asked, suddenly relieve for at least on familiar face. The nurse, Christine Chapel, smiled a little and nodded, stepping forward to hug her old friend. They had been friends in the Academy, having met while Annie was visiting with Doctor McCoy. Christine had also been involved with Jim in the past but Annie knew she didn't like it brought up. "I haven't seen you since," Annie stopped herself.
"Since Jim and I stopped seeing each other," Christine finished. "Yeah, I transferred to the Encounter; they needed a head nurse anyway." The girls embraced once more before one of the officers stepped in.
"I'm sorry, nurse, but we have orders," he said reaching for Annie's arm. Christine looked like she was about to say something but stopped. She turned to Annie.
"I'm really sorry about this but the captain wants you under constant supervision in the medical bay until we get to Condan," she said, surprising Annie.
"It's okay," Annie replied in a small voice and followed the officers to the med-bay.
She felt the ship go to warp but the officer's firm hand on her arm stopped her from stumbling from the slight dizziness she felt. Thank goodness for that, at least, she thought.
Once in the med-bay, Annie finally had a chance to think. She went back over everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
She thought about the admiral eyeing her like some kind of prized weapon and then running across campus to her friends' room. She realized what a mess she must have looked like, curled up into a ball on Leonard's lap. She didn't regret it but she hoped they didn't suddenly think less of her for her emotional outbreak.
Then she thought about her current situation, headed to a planet for uranium. She realized then that she recognized the name of the planet from somewhere. She tried to remember where she had heard it before but failed to figure it out. It wasn't a well-known planet, she knew, or else they would have covered it in her navigation class. She figured it was probably for the most part uninhabited as well if uranium was abundant.
Regardless of her toiling in thought, she still couldn't place her familiarity with the planet anywhere.
She continued to ponder over the planet until another officer walked into the med-bay.
"We are nearing Condan," he announced. "We need her on her shuttle now." He turned to leave but Annie spoke up and stopped him.
"Wait, we aren't beaming?" She asked.
"No," he replied. "It's easier to load the uranium onto shuttles than to beam it. The radiation interferes with our sensors." Annie nodded and climbed off the biobed to follow him.
They put her on her own shuttle. She figured it was just another precaution the captain was making about her. She missed Jim and Leonard more terribly now that she was in such a hostile environment.
She sat and waited for the transport to land when she remembered something odd about this planet. She remembered rocky mountains and barren wastelands and she ran up to the front of the shuttle. Out the window she could see only thick dust and she looked at the scanner which showed no sign of danger. But she felt something in her urging her not to trust what she saw.
"We are going to crash," she said panicking. The pilot of the craft looked back at her in confusion.
"How do you know that?" He asked. Annie tried to think of a response but found none.
"I-I don't know," she admitted. "But you have to trust me!" The pilot pressed a few buttons.
"Encounter this is Shuttle B, are we on a collision course?" He comm-ed to the main ship.
"Of course not," a booming voice responded which she figured was the captain.
"He's wrong," she urged him. Noting the panic in her voice, the pilot decided to pull up slightly. "If you coast a few more feet, there's a platform," she instructed, "I think."
The pilot eyed her warily but did as she said. He finally coasted to a stop. Annie was about to relax when an urgent voice came over the comm.
"Mayday, mayday! This is Shuttle A and we are about to crash!" It shouted. The pilot of her shuttle looked back at her as her eyes grew wide in realization that she had been right. "Something jammed our sensors and we couldn't see the mountain in front of-" then there was static.
Annie took off out the door of the shuttle and towards the crash with her pilot in tow. She saw now that the shuttle was engulfed in flames and there was no way anyone had survived.
Suddenly the dust cleared and she was left alone with her pilot.
"Shit," the pilot said. "That could have been us!" Annie nodded. She turned to head back to the shuttle to radio the ship when she heard an eerily familiar voice.
"Welcome home, Annabelle," it said. "It took you much longer than I expected, though." Annie turned back around and saw a man standing a head taller than her with short, white hair and piercing blue eyes. He was looking at her carefully.
"What the hell?" The pilot said behind her. Before she could react, the man flicked his hand and she heard the pilot's neck snap. She would have screamed if she wasn't so terrified.
"Who- who are you?" She whimpered. He look a step forward and with more light she saw the evil grin he had on his face.
"Why Annabelle, I'm hurt. Don't you recognize the man that created you?" He sneered. Annie wasn't sure if she was going to cry, throw up or scream and feeling so overwhelmed, she felt her vision go black and she passed out.