Chekov laughed, a wild, crooked grin splitting his face. "You'd be surprised at the power behind the Russian Navy. Go for it, Jim."
Kirk hesitated, but only for a moment. He was grinning himself when he took the wheel again. It occurred to him almost immediately that Chekov wasn't just lounging in the bow of the boat. As they progressed, the Navigator watched to see that the Captain kept the ship in the channel and avoided catching any mooring lines.
"Pavel!"
Chekov twisted around, peering up at Sulu who was–in fact–lounging atop the crosstrees.
"Pavel, get up here!" the Helmsman demanded, his voice strident. "Hurry!"
The Navigator immediately swung up onto the shrouds and casually ran up to Sulu's position. He stood there intently listening to his friend talk. Kirk wasn't afraid of heights but he couldn't pry his eyes from Chekov, whose easy stance gave no suggestion at all that he was perched some ninety feet from the safety of the deck on a small piece of wood.
The Helmsman's right arm was wrapped fiercely around the mast, displaying clearly his discomfort in the same position. He was gesturing frantically toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Chekov glanced back at Kirk and then said something quickly to Sulu before sailing down the nearest backstay.
Kirk's body tensed as the Navigator raced backward toward him. "Captain, get to the top of the mainmast," he ordered sharply. "Nytoya, take the wheel."
"You mean to the crosstrees with Sulu?"
"No," Chekov retorted. "I said to the top of the mainmast: you're the heaviest. Sulu's going up the foremast, just follow his lead.
"Doctor," he continued with urgency in his voice. "Get over here to the rail."
Kirk could feel his confusion slowing his climb up the shrouds and he forced it away to speed up the tarred rope ladder.
Grabbing the nearest ballentined line, the Navigator began hurriedly lashing McCoy to the starboard rail amidships.
"What, are you making me walk the plank?" the Doctor demanded hotly, slapping at the younger man.
"No," Chekov retorted. "I'm keeping you on the ship!
"Nytoya," he continued. "I need you to haul her hard to starboard–get her rail in the water!"
"Wait a minute!" McCoy screamed.
"Don't move, Doctor!" Chekov yelled back as he raced up the mizzenmast. "Hard, Nytoya! Get her over now!"
The Captain was standing at the top of the shrouds, hand on the mast, as he watched the young man's urgent movements. His non-action caught the attention of the ship's commanding officer. "MOVE, JIM!"
He started. Chekov was scrambling up to the very top of the mizzenmast. It was what he'd instructed Kirk to do. Grabbing the spire of wood, he shimmied up to the dizzying exposed top of the mast for reasons he still didn't understand. Sulu had shortened his body on the starboard side of the foremast and was leaning backward, hanging off of it.
The Captain began to shout something but froze as his eyes caught sight of the bridge they approached. His heart seized in his chest. Instantly, he followed the Helmsman's example. Only he understood now: they were not hanging off the masts, they were pulling on them using every ounce of weight and effort that they could.
Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT! Kirk thought. He had been too careful. In steering the ship up the channel, he'd kept as close to port as he could in an effort to keep to the side of the shipping lane. A sailing ship this size couldn't maneuver out of the way of other approaching craft. By ancient maritime law, they had the right of way because of this: but getting in the way was considered down right rude.
James Kirk had forgotten about the bridge. The beautiful, graceful, sweeping, Golden Gate Bridge. DAMN IT.
He'd steered them so close to port, their masts weren't going to clear the bottom of its structure. The ship was about to be torn apart in sight of safe harbor.
Kirk pulled fiercely and felt a flood of adrenalin from his gut fill his chest. His body sank deeply toward the open water rushing beneath him at dizzying speeds. Don't be sick, he ordered his body as his throat closed. For God's sake...don't be sick.
Pulling the wheel over with her own weight, Uhura forced the ship to press the stakes on her starboard side into the water.
"Son of a Bitch!" McCoy gasped and pulled frantically at the rope wrapped around his body. Chekov had secured it behind him and he'd no hope of loosening it.
"Get him wet, Nytoya!" the Navigator shouted from his perch, laughing.
"Bones, lean into it!" Kirk ordered. "We need your weight!"
"I'm already swimming!" he screamed back. "Wait 'til the next time I get you in sickbay!" the Doctor yelled at Chekov.
The younger man only laughed louder, throwing his head back gleefully and shaking his hair into the rushing wind. "You wouldn't climb!" he reminded the Chief Medical Officer.
McCoy screamed as his flailing arms hit water.
Gasping, Kirk held his breath as he watched the foremast pass under the first ancient steel support beam. He waited to see Sulu get knocked clear but his ability to judge the clearance between the wood and metal was skewed from his perch. The foremast passed the edge of the bridge without touching.
He yanked on the mast he held. It was higher than the foremast and he wasn't letting go if it meant getting his head knocked off. Squeezing his eyes shut, he held his breath again as he felt the cool air from the bridge's shade hit his body. Sound became an eerie echo and he actually felt the hard coolness of the metal inches from his hands.
The cold from the open expanse of the bridge's floor clutched his body and he opened his eyes, knowing he was safely under the first beam. His heart raced as he stared up at the underside of the ancient road stretched across the water. Kirk had sailed under it before but he had never taken the time to stare up at it's remarkable engineering.
"Yes!" Sulu yelled in victory as he emerged safely from under the other beam and the sun hit his body again.
Grinning in understanding, the Captain kept his eyes open this time and watched as the metal beam passed before him without touching the wood he clutched protectively. He couldn't help ducking in primitive reflex, however.
Chekov cheered in victory when the final mast cleared the structure. The Captain knew this because he saw him do it. He couldn't hear him.
The deafening cheers of the people filling the bridge drown out the Navigator's voice. Kirk stared at them, stunned. He'd been too preoccupied to notice them before, but the entire length of the bridge was packed with onlookers who had rushed to see the schooner sail under the structure. It was a sight that hadn't graced their view for over three hundred years–even without the crew's acrobatics to get her under safely.
Grinning wildly, Kirk pulled his body up against the mast again and hung there, panting. It wasn't the victory that made him grin. It wasn't the physical effort that made him pant.
The shoreline on both sides were swollen with a thick, unbroken mob of people cheering wildly and waving. People hung out of the windows and balconies of the houses behind them. A few brave souls even dotted several rooftops. In his entire career--in his entire life--James Kirk had never felt such overwhelming, unbridled, hero worship.
The ship gracefully righted herself and when he felt himself upright again he reluctantly let himself down the tarred backstay. "This is amazing," he marveled as Sulu approached.
The younger man was grinning still as well. "Ships are the nearest things to dreams that human hands have ever made," he asserted. "They touch the soul of man."
"Robert Rose," Kirk acknowledged. "This is amazing," he repeated with unashamed astonishment in his tone.
"They've never seen a ship come in under sail before."
"Like a ship was meant to." The Captain's eyes swept along the people crowding the shoreline, but his gaze was caught by something on the ship. He turned hazel eyes toward Chekov.
Standing next to the wheel again, one of the young man's hands casually clasped a spoke as he guided the ship back into the middle of the now clear shipping lane. With a shy smile, Chekov acknowledged the crowds with short, almost deferential waves artfully placed as they sailed. His sheepishness was a perfect union with his boundless natural charm and charisma: every acknowledgment from him brought enthusiastic roars from the crowd.
"You'd think he was the Prince of Wales," Kirk marveled to Sulu.
"The Russian Navy," the Helmsman corrected easily. "They teach maritime history, they march in parades–they're taught to deal with crowds."
"I can see why he quit." Uhura smiled and gracefully smoothed her hair back into place as she joined them. "This could be downright depressing."
"And he's so bad at it," the Captain added as he watched the young man. The wholesome, sheepish innocence was glowing on Chekov's boyish features and to the strangers that watched it was infectious. Kirk was right: the wholesome facade was practiced. He carefully stored the information in his mind for future use.
"Excuse me," he added, moving back to Chekov at the wheel.
The young man flashed him a wild grin. "That was fun."
With a smile, Kirk nodded agreement. "Reporting to resume my duties," he informed the Navigator deferentially.
Soulful brown eyes regarded the Captain with warmth. "I've got it from here, thanks."
Kirk didn't move. "Pavel," he drew out after a moment. "People make mistakes. I want the opportunity to see my responsibilities to their end."
"Damn inconvenient place to put a bridge," the younger man commented, but his smile turned sweet. "Captain," he said, eyes surveying the people along the shore. "We know who's in command of this ship, but they don't. A captain never steers the ship. Nelzya," he outright snarled. "It isn't done. IT ISN'T DONE."
Kirk shrugged. "I'm not in command."
"But you're a Captain. The people along the shore may not know: but THEY do," the Navigator insisted, gesturing with his head toward the bow of the ship.
The Captain turned and let his gaze follow the younger man's line of eyesight. As they came into the harbor, the masts of the tall ship moored there were coming into view. He moved over subtly and let his hand slip onto the port rail.
History ran in cycles and so did the human race's interest in it. Sailing ships had propelled history fiercely along on this blue planet until early in the twentieth century. Engines had pushed them out of use and out of people's minds. Frankly, the United States of America's bicentennial had been their first savior: generating a surge of interest at a point in time when they may have been lost forever.
As time had meandered along the interest of the human race in their maritime heritage had continued to wax and wane: each time these noble ships were saved by a simple twist of circumstances. The last period of disinterest had stretched on interminably into a sparse wasteland of abandoned souls held captive in rotting wooden hulls.
A lone man in the Russian Federation had wrested the traditional ships from the grasp of certain death this last time. A true visionary, he had refounded the Russian Navy as a history museum: restoring all the surviving vessels in his country and training seamen and shipsmiths alike. He had then turned his gaze outward to the rest of Earth. Each ship had received the full attention of the Navy, although his vision was for each country's natives to eventually take the place of the Russian seamen aboard the ships.
Kirk was sure that vision had not come into completion anywhere yet, so he knew the men he saw on the ship they approached were by and large from the Russian Federation. The ship was dressed: dozens of signal flags strung from her bow, over her masts, and down to her stern. The sailors stood on the footropes along every one of her nine yards, as well. Dressed to the nines... Her officers stood on the quarterdeck silently.
"Friends of yours?" the Captain asked Chekov.
"Some," the man commented, eyes on the ship in question. "But no shipmates." There was a huge difference, anyone familiar with military service knew. "She's the Balclutha," he continued. "She's three hundred one feet long, with a beam of thirty-eight point six feet."
Chekov smiled tauntingly at McCoy, who stood at the rail next to Kirk. "HER mainmast is one hundred forty five feet high."
"And I'll bet you know her entire history," Kirk remarked.
The Navigator's eyes widened. "Frankly, history has never interested me."
"Must be why you always get it wrong," McCoy rasped in a mutter. "Are they setting sail?"
"He's lying," the Captain asserted, turning his attention back to the Balclutha. "No one accidently gets everything wrong.
"They're saluting us," he continued to the Doctor. "It's the highest honor one crew can pay to another." Indeed, as the schooner passed the ship they fired their salute cannon.
He took to waving back to the crowds himself, but almost immediately understood the gentile wave that the Windsors–and Chekov–used. The Captain's shoulder hurt and he stopped.
Kirk's eyes caught sight of and held on the man leaning against a wooden pylon on the Balclutha's wharf. He didn't know why. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about the short, bearded man.
The man had on a Russian peasant blouse that was so discolored that Kirk couldn't decide where it belonged in the spectrum between white and tan. His trousers were similarly a faded, worn brown. Back casually resting against the massive wooden pylon, his hands were tucked behind him with ease as well.
The man didn't have on the startling white Russian Navy uniform with braids of gold garland that would have identified him for who he was. Kirk knew him anyway and when the huge, soulful brown eyes met his, the Captain's soul quieted.
"Pavel," Kirk urged, glancing back at him and gesturing. "Look."
When he looked back, however, the pylon stood alone. He searched the crowd quickly but it was as if the man had dissipated into thin air. "It was him," the Captain insisted. "The Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy was standing there!"
The same Russian eyes the stranger had used to meet Kirk's stared at the Captain warmly from a familiar visage. "Of course he was. He can't bring his ship in under sail."
Kirk stared into the crowd with disappointment. "I'd like to meet him someday."
"You will. Time to get these sails in, Captain. I can't dock her without the engine."
When the ship was secured, Kirk found his Navigator lingering uncomfortably on deck with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. "Tell me," the Captain encouraged. "Did you run home to get your Navy uniform– or do you have it on the Enterprise?"
"The white pants?" Chekov asked. "The Enterprise: I sleep in them. They're comfortable."
The young man's face was entirely too wholesome.
Uhura glanced at her friend, dark eyes sparkling. She grinned at the Captain. "And women think they're hot. Sailor suits are always a sure bet."
The Navigator could avert his gaze, but he wasn't able to hide the color that flushed into his cheeks.
Kirk stood silently, watching as the rest of the current crew filtered off the ship. Knowing gazes were cast at the two men gripped by the silent deadlock of wills.
"Admit it," Kirk goaded the younger man when they were alone. "Being on this ship has made you nostalgic for the Navy."
"Men go to sea before they know the unhappiness of that way of life," Chekov commented. "James Powell," he added in response to Kirk's curious look.
"Pavel," the Captain said with a note of respect in his tone. "You're surprisingly well read."
Brown eyes remained fixed on Kirk silently, then traveled over the ship in a great show of melodrama.
Kirk understood and he smirked in response. "Not much variety of recreational facilities on these ships."
"I'm miserably behind on current entertainment and recreation," the Navigator admitted.
Kirk wasn't about to argue–even about the definition of 'current'. No one in their right mind would ever put a bowling ball into Chekov's hand again.
The Captain knew why the man seemed uncomfortable. "You're in command," he said finally. "You leave the ship last." Kirk actually hoped the Navy's Commander in Chief was still somewhere in that crowd: he wanted the man to see Chekov leave last. Hornblower may not have been a sailor, but his Navigator had been. He was now a command officer and Chekov had a unique opportunity to show the Admiral what he had let slip through his fingers. The statement was entirely within the Navigator's personality and Kirk was not above encouraging it.
"You're the Captain," Chekov insisted. "You should leave last."
"It's not about rank."
"It is to me," the younger man said evenly. His dark eyes were unreadable and they remained solidly fixed on Kirk.
The Captain shifted. Maybe making the Navigator more comfortable in standing up to his Commanding Officer had been a bad idea, after all. He gestured at him. "What does that shirt say, Ensign?"
Chekov squirmed visibly. "Captain," he said thickly. "There is no regulation that you can use to make me tell you."
"No," Kirk retorted, a glint in his hazel eyes. "But there are other people that read Russian on the ship."
The man's jaw tightened. "There are, Sir," he replied before turning and walking away. With clear defiance in his step, Chekov strode down the gangway: leaving Kirk alone on the ship.
------
NOTE: Although fictionalized, the events depicted in this story actually took place during the 2003 sailing season. The author gratefully acknowledges Cpt. John, Cpt. Eric, world-renowned shantyman Geoff Kaufman, and the entire crew of the Mystic Whaler: thanks for keeping the dreams alive–even when at the risk of your lives.