They call us crazy youngsters
Time is running out but who cares we're running free
Hell yeah, we're crazy youngsters
We don't apologize, we're mad and running free
(Cause we got) Hey, we got a lot of things to do (Hey)
Hey, we got a lot of things to prove
(Yeah we got) Yeah we got a lot of room to grow
(Hey) Yeah we got a lot of miles to go
So we keep driving, we keep driving
Crazy Youngsters – Ester Dean
"You dinnae remember me, do ye, lad?" Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott asked Bones when she introduced them to each other. Apparently, it was an unnecessary introduction.
"Oh, I remember. You're the crazy Scot who almost got yourself blown up on the Yorktown," her husband said.
"Aye. And you're the grumpy med student who missed your girlfriend," Scotty –as she was told to call him- said. "How'd that all turn out?"
"I got my MD, then I married her," Bones chuckled.
"Well, congratulations, lad. Ye got yourself something special with this one. The lass managed to impress a bunch of people who aren't easily impressed," the engineer said.
"I do what I can," she smiled.
"And then some," Bones whispered to Scotty. "You ready to get your hands on the Enterprise?"
Working with Marvick was like being a kid in a candy store. Not only did she have access to all kinds of cool tech, she also got to meet some of the best engineers in the Federation. And Montgomery Scott was something of an engineering savant. As good as he was at everything, the man's specialties were transporter technology and warp systems. Marvick calling him in meant that the engines on the Enterprise were gonna be amazing.
Scotty smiled, "Oh, I was born ready, lad."
"I want one," Jim whispered to her dad.
"Well, when a boy and a girl love each other very much…"
"You know what I mean, asshole," she chuckled. She doesn't know why her dad kept taking recruitment assignments but he brought her along whenever his potential recruit was a child prodigy. Today, they were here to see a fourteen year old super genius. "What do you know about this kid?"
"Pavel Andreievich Chekov. Born twenty-two forty-one in Tagnarog, Russia. Spent a few years on the Luna colony of Mare Imbrium. Bunch of elite Russian and international schools, ultimately entered Moscow State University. The kid has a PhD in math and a master's in physics," her dad told her.
"He's really fourteen?"
"Yea. You wanna meet him?" he asked. She nodded and the walked over to the kid who was working on three different algorithms at the same time.
"Pavel Chekov," Jim said. The boy looked up at her. "Hi, I'm Jim Kirk."
"I'm telling you, Jim. Your dad is already putting together his crew for when the Enterprise is done. He wants this girl on his team," Dex told her.
Her father's old yeoman, Colt, got promoted and took orders on a ship right before the whole Ajilon Prime thing. Dex kind of fell into being her dad's assistant and Jim could admit that it was pretty awesome that her friend was sticking around HQ.
"So why am I here and not him?" she asked as she took a sip of her coffee.
"Because there's still a bit of the boy's club thing going in Starfleet and she needs to meet someone who's a direct contradiction to that practice," he sighed as he looked around for his friend.
It was a sad, hard truth in the fleet. Jim's never been discriminated against because of her gender -thanks, George- but it happens all the time. The difficulty with merging a lot of cultures into a community is that people's customs, and prejudice, are still part of who they are. It takes work to get rid of it and Humanity was still working.
"Tell me about her," Jim said.
"She's the linguist. Attended the Nairobi Girls Academy, advanced studies of the Earth-Romulus War. Just got her degree from the Institute for Advanced Mathematics in Harmonic and Functional Analysis," Dex said. "There she is."
Jim looked up to find a gorgeous –like insanely gorgeous- woman heading in their direction. If Jim wasn't married, she'd be thinking of a million and three ways to get this girl to go out with her. Long, dark hair that fell in silky strands down her back. Eyes that reminded Jim of dark chocolate. Slender build, with the body of a runner or a dancer, maybe both.
"Is she just going to stare at me, or is she going to tell me why I should join Starfleet?" the girl asked.
"I'd tell you not to flatter yourself but you know that you're beautiful. I'm not hitting on you, married, I'm just pointing out a fact." Jim held her hand out, "Commander Jim Kirk."
"I know who you are, Commander. Someone your age rises the ranks as well and as fast as you did, people pay attention. Your family only adds to the curiosity. I'm Nyota Uhura."
"What are we looking at?" Bones asked as he sat in the grass next to her and took her hand in his.
"The spot where my house used to be," she muttered. Jim hasn't been here in a long time. She's managed to avoid trips to Riverside since she was a kid and if it wasn't for the shipyard –which was put here to honor her father- she wouldn't be in this town at all. "How'd you know I was here?"
"Your dad checked the location on your communicator," he told her. "You okay?"
"Surprisingly, yes. I thought I was gonna have a hard time being here but I don't. Maybe it's because I know that there was nothing I could've done. Or maybe because I know that I wouldn't be who I am today if it hadn't happened. Dad wouldn't have raised me, we wouldn't have met or gotten married. All of that started right here."
"Glass half full, darlin'?"
"Something like that. How are the new recruits?"
"A pain in my ass. I don't know why I agreed help Chris with these idiots," Bones sighed.
"Me," she chuckled as she played with his wedding band. "You were very distracted when I brought it up."
"You're very distracting," he chuckled before standing up. "Come on, I heard some of the kids are gonna check out the bar near the shipyard. We should keep an eye on them. I don't feel like patching anyone up tonight."
"Not even me?" Jim asked as he pulled her up.
"Especially you. There are a lot more interesting things we can do with our time."
"Hey, is the old man in?" Jim asked Dex.
"He is but Admiral Barnett is in there too," he told her. "You're gonna have to get in line behind these three." Dex motioned to the cadets standing near his desk.
"What's with them?" she asked.
"No idea," he chuckled.
Jim sighed, "Cadet…"
"Hendorff, sir," the tall man said.
"Why are you here?"
"I was ordered to report, sir," Hendorff told her.
"What did you do?" she asked. Her dad already has a lot on his plate, he wouldn't just add to it unless there's a reason.
"I was in a fight with another cadet, sir," the cadet told her. She looked at the man next to him and noticed that both men had bruised knuckles.
"Who won?" Jim asked them.
"I did, sir," the other cadet said. She looked at him. "Cadet Hastings."
"Dex, five demerits each. Assign them both to my hand-to-hand class," she said.
"Yes, sir," her friend said.
"You're dismissed, gentlemen," Jim told them before looking at the last cadet. "You, what do you want?"
"To fly," the Asian cadet told her.
"But?"
"I have a PhD in astrophysics and a master's in interstellar navigation. Someone, in their infinite wisdom, decided to put me on the science track. I'm a pilot. I came to Starfleet to fly. Captain Pike's my advisor, I need him to change it," the cadet said.
"You any good?" she asked.
"I'm very good and I'm more than willing to demonstrate," he smiled. Jim knew the look in his eyes. It's the look that Gary gets when he's at the helm. The look that Bones gets when he saves someone's life. The look she sees in the mirror when she's doing her job. Pure joy.
"I'll have you reassigned to the command track and have the captain sign off on it," Jim said.
"Just like that?" he asked.
"Just like that. Hope I get a chance to see you fly, Cadet…"
"Sulu. Hikaru Sulu."
"What can I do for you, Mister Spock?" Jim asked her friend as she stepped into one of the labs he uses.
Being the wonderfully brilliant creature he is, he graduated from the Academy as a Lieutenant Commander and he was working as the new programmer for a lot of the old systems. Like her, he was also slated to teach some classes.
"There is something you need to see," he said as he handed her a PADD as she sat on one of the stools.
"What am I looking at?"
"I have been running various analysis of the weapon signatures from the Klingon vessels at Ajilon Prime," he told her. "Today, I searched the fleet's database for any similarities and I found one."
"That's… there's no way," she muttered as she read the information.
"It is not beyond the realm of possibility, Jim. The Narada was damaged near Klingon space and has not been seen since. It appears the Klingons have found a way to reverse engineer the advanced weaponry that disabled the Kelvin."
"We're gonna have to tell the brass." If the Klingons have even a dozen ships with this weapon on them, the fleet was in trouble. "What's this?" Jim asked as she pulled up one of the scans from her father's ship.
"I do not know," Spock whispered before he put it on one of his screens. "An element of some kind. Give me a moment." She watched as he searched a system she was unfamiliar with. "It is decalithium, a rare isotope. The information is limited."
"How limited?"
"Classified by the Vulcan Science Academy," he said. Most people would miss the surprise in his voice, but Jim caught it.
"The Vulcan Science Academy doesn't just classify elements. What does that stuff do? And why was it in the wreckage of my father's ship?" Jim's been over and through all the information she could get her hands on about what happened to the Kelvin but she's never had access to the Vulcan's database to fill in some of the gaps.
"I do not know. Perhaps, we should ask them," Spock said.
"Aren't you having enough of an issue with your father?" Jim asked. She didn't want her curiosity to cause him more problems with his dad.
"We are not going to ask my father. We are going to talk to my mother."
"You shouldn't be poking around in classified information, Spock," the woman on the comm said to him.
"It was not our intention. We were conducting research and this is where it has led us. Is there anything you can tell us about this isotope, mother?"
"I can't. I really wish I knew what this stuff was. I'll tell you what, I'll keep digging into it from here and I'll let you know if I find something."
"That is satisfactory," he said.
"Normal people say 'thanks for doing me a favor, mom'," Jim chuckled.
"She's right," Lady Amanda, Spock's mother, said with a smile.
"I am not normal," Spock told them. Both women looked at him. "Thank you, mother."
"See, that wasn't so hard," Jim chuckled.
"I like her. Maybe you two should…"
"She is married, mother," he said.
"Oh. Well, we should still find you a nice girl. Something about T'Pring rubs me the wrong way," Amanda said.
Jim knew that like other Vulcans, Spock was betrothed to marry a Vulcan girl he bonded to when he was a child. Apparently, the girl didn't grow up as she was expected to because Jim could see the disdain on Amanda's beautiful face.
"Mother. I am perfectly capable of engaging with people socially," the half Vulcan said.
Jim and Amanda looked at each other. The younger woman chuckled, "I'll see what I can do."
AN: So, I decided that I'm gonna go AU for the movie. Like really AU. Because of that, I had to get the rest of our team out of the locker room and onto the field.