"Are you bloody mad?" came an astonished voice.
"I may well be, but dammit Scotty, I want my life back. I mean, what kind of life is it to be hobbling around and depending on other people all the time. I want to be independent again. So, when I came across those restricted files from the Enterprise - D, I couldn't pass up a chance to take a peek. The Enterprise, under the command of Picard, is always involved in interesting escapades. And besides, I'm an admiral and that provides me some perks."
McCoy, at over 150 years of age and having innumerable transplants along with mechanical legs, still had not lost one bit of his temper and bite. In fact, he may have even gained some extra bite in his old age. Scotty just sat there, totally flabbergasted at what McCoy had just proposed to him. Out of all the crazy schemes he had heard in all his years in Starfleet, this was definitely among the craziest. McCoy got tired of waiting and continued.
"Scotty, you're the best damned engineer in Starfleet and one of the few people I would trust with my life. If you won't help me then I'll have to do it myself."
"Ye can't be serious?" Scotty said, exasperated. "At your age you wouldn't get anywhere."
"All the more reason for you to come along then." McCoy said with a sly half smile.
Scotty took a quick look around the room to make sure no one was paying attention. The bar they were in was not particularly crowded and they were sitting in a dark corner and wearing civilian clothing. The bar had a musty smell of sweat and, of course, alcohol. The waitresses were scantily dressed, which was probably why McCoy had chosen this bar in the first place. The table that they were at looked like it had not been cleaned all day. There were a few people who had passed out at the bar and even one on the floor, whom everyone just stepped over and ignored. He had also noticed that the bar offered a choice of either real alcohol or synthohol. He was surprised that this place had not been closed down. It was definitely the last place that anyone would expect to find two Starfleet officers.
Scotty lowered his voice and reluctantly said, "aye, but stealing a ship won't be easy. And trying to convince Mr. Spock and the Captain to go along with this will be nai impossible. Just how the bloody hell do you plan to accomplish all this?"
"Starfleet just finished building a new Defiant-Class ship with some updated technology. They wanted someone to inspect the medical facilities so I volunteered. I also suggested that you accompany me as well and they agreed, so you should be expecting to be contacted at any time now. All I have to do is invite Jim and Spock for a sort of reunion and a tour. But the thing I need to know is whether you are willing to re-calibrate the transporter to the specifications I will provide you with."
"But what makes you think this crazy scheme or yours will work at all? It sounds a little too easy to me. And we both know that if it sounds easy, it usually turns out that we barely make it out alive."
"I know Dr. Crusher and I've even worked with her. She's very thorough and she is one of the best doctors in Starfleet. And don't worry, things will turn out fine."
"But she didn't make them younger, she returned them to their rightful age. This keeps sounding crazier and crazier."
"Scotty, she added the RVN sequences from the transporter memory banks and had the transporter chief suspended Picard and the others while their missing RVN sequences were entered into their patterns. All I have to do is retrieve our RVN sequences from when we were in out late twenties from my personal memory base and while you are beaming them over to the ship you can enter the old RVN sequences and they will be young again. So, are you in or not," he said impatiently. At his age he had no time to be patient.
Scotty seemed reluctant and a little nervous talking about this in public. He glanced around again before answering. "Aye, but I still think you're crazy to be doing this. But I have to keep and eye on you. I mean, what would the Captain say if I let you go off on some hair-brained scheme and get yourself killed," he said as he drank his last drop of scotch.
At that moment a waitress came over. "Would you like anything sir?"
"Aye, a scotch for me. Ah, bloody hell, just bring me a whole bottle. And no more of this bloody synthohol. I want real alcohol." Then he lowered his voice again. "I'm gonna need it, otherwise I might just change my mind"
"OK, and you sir?" she said to McCoy.
"I'll have a whiskey."
"Are you sure you should be drinking whiskey at you age? I mean...."
"Just bring me my whiskey, and make it snappy," he said, cutting her off.
"Yes, sir," she said, somewhat annoyed at his tone of voice.
When the waitress had left, McCoy added, "you see what I mean? To her, I'm just an old fart who can't handle a bit of whiskey, and I'm tired of being treated that way. And besides, what are you worried about, it'll work out just fine. With the four of us back together again, what could go wrong?"
"Aye, that's exactly what I'm worried about," he mumbled to himself.
McCoy was not paying any attention to what he was saying because the drinks had arrived. Scotty poured his first of many glasses as they began to reminisce about old times and lost friends.