As Jim came into the bridge, he moved directly to Lydia without hesitation. He took her into his arms and didn't let go. They had just come face to face with the man that had murdered their fathers and now they knew what he was capable of. She was in shock and shaking as he held her. Well to be completely honest Kirk wasn't sure if the one shacking was really her or was it him.

"You alright?" Lydia asked him.

"Yeah I'm good," he said still holding on to her. "What about you?"

"I am ok. Then again I wasn't the one in a fight a few minutes ago."

With a laugh, Kirk let her go. "Yeah well I wasn't the one keeping the ship from falling apart around everyone. Then again I think what I did was definitely cooler. After all I didn't see you jumping out of any ships" They laugh a little at that. That's what they needed, a quiet chuckle between them to get the equilibrium back.

"So what now?"

"Let's ask our captain," Lydia answer as they turned to where Spock had just entered the bridge.

"Oh great," Jim said as they walked to the center.

"Lieutenant, have you confirmed that Nero is headed for Earth?"

"Their trajectory suggests no other destination, Captain." Uhura said after checking her facts once more to make sure.

"Earth may be his next stop, but we have to assume every Federation planet's a target." Kirk said.

"Yes, agreed- but why didn't they destroy us?" asked Chekov.

"Why waste a weapon? We weren't a threat," said Sulu.

"That's not it. He said he wanted me to see something. The destruction of my home planet," Spock replied.

"And how the hell did they do that by the way? When did they jump so far ahead in the arms race?" McCoy asked. Spock called him up as he was the new prime medic.

"Well they do have a machine capable of creating black holes. Which after all in theory can be used to manipulate time. That alone could be the answer."

"Wait Lydia, what are you saying that they are from the future?" McCoy asked turning towards her.

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth."

"Then what would an angry future Romulan want with Captain Pike?" Kirk asked trying to tie everything together.

"As Admiral he knows details of Starfleet's defenses," Sulu said.

"Yeah well so do all the other admirals that he murder in the attack on the fleet. There is more to why Captain Pike than that," said Lydia.

"What we need to do is catch up to that ship. Disable it, take it over and get Pike back."

They all turned to Kirk for a moment. Most thinking he was nuts but McCoy and Lydia were always on his side. Even reluctantly.

"Fantastic, I'm in," McCoy said.

"Captain Pike left us with standing orders to rendezvous with the fleet on the other side of the quadrant. We're technologically outmatched in every way. A rescue attempt would be illogical."

"Illogical… you're funny."

"Not to mention we couldn't do it anyway: Nero's ship would have to drop out of warp for us to overtake them…"

Shaking her head Lydia turned to Spock. "I can reroute some man power to boost our warp yield. It would not take me long to do it."

"Remaining power and crew are being used to repair radiation leaks on the lower decks and damage to the main deflector shield- without which we cannot communicate with Starfleet." "Okay-okay, okayokayokay- there's gotta be SOME WAY!"

"We must gather with the rest of Starfleet to balance the terms of our next engagement…"

"There won't be a next engagement, Spock: by the time we've "gathered", it'll be too late - how many planets are you willing to risk? You say he's from the future? Knows what's gonna happen? Then the logical thing is to be unpredictable."

"You're assuming Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. The contrary: Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the U.S.S. Kelvin, culminating in the events of today - thereby creating a new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party."

"... an alternate reality," said Uhura completely stunned.

"Precisely. Whatever lives we might have lived, if the time continuum was disrupted... our destinies have changed. Mr. Sulu, plot a course for the Laurentian system, Warp Factor Three…" "- wait- don't do that - Spock - running back to the rest of the fleet for a confab is a massive waste of time—" "- These were the orders" "He also ordered us to go" "Captain Pike issued when he" "back and get him! Spock, left ship—" "you're Captain now-!" "- I am aware of my" "- Every second we waste," "responsibilities, Mr. Kirk!" "Nero's getting closer to his" "next target-!" "- that is correct - and why I'm instructing you to accept" "- I will not allow us to go" "that I alone am in command." "backwards, away from the problem, instead of hunting" "- then I must remove you from" "Nero down!" "this ship. If I confine you to the brig, you'll likely escape. Mr. Chekov: have transportation prepare a deployment capsule. Mr. Sulu, escort him out."

For a moment nobody moved. Watching this two was something else entirely. They all knew it. None of them wanted to move. Who did they followed? Because as much as Spock was their captain they could see it. That wasn't his spot. They could all see it as much as they would not want to admit it. Kirk was a Captain.

Before they could react, though Jim did. Trying to get away from the people who were trying to arrest him only to have Spock use the Vulcan pinch on him.

As all of this was happening, Uhura was holding Lydia back who had tried to jump in and help Kirk.

"You can't do anything to help him like this, trust me," she whispered to Lydia as they watched security take Jim away.

"I hope you understand why I had to do this Miss. Talbot," Spock said walking towards Lydia. Uhura was about to interfere because if Spock thought Lydia would be logical in this moment in any shape he was wrong. Still Lydia seeing what her friend was doing pushed her out of the way to stand in front of Spock.

"You want to know what I think? I just saw a captain throw out of his ship a good asset that has proven himself in more than one occasion to be able to think under pressure quite well. I saw a Captain not liking his orders being question by someone and taking drastic measures to make sure that didn't happened again. I understand the kind of captain you are Captain Spock. Now if you will excuse me I will go do my job because if I don't we may never get to wherever you want us to go."

Leaving behind the bridge Lydia knew that she had to move quickly. They would Jim out of the ship as fast as they could but there were still protocol that had to be followed, Spock would make sure of that. So she had to act quickly.

Getting to the bay where the pod was located was easy enough. Now getting to the pod itself would take more of a challenge. The pod wasn't big but she knew that this pods didn't have internal cameras. That would help her now how to get around the ones on the outside. Lydia knew that Spock would be monitoring them to make sure everything went off without a hitch. Thankfully, she had brought her pad with her.

As she watched the last preparations for the pod, she knew that she had to time this perfectly. If she rushed, she might be seen, and if she waited, she might be sucked into space when the doors opened to let Jim's pod out. Using her pad, she was able to getting into the security system. This was too easy she should really look into it once she was back on the federations good grazes. She was able to redirect the feed so that when she ran to the pod a short circuit would take the camera feed out for a moment. She needed to make sure it was only long enough to cover her yet not so long that anyone would suspect something from it.

"10"

The countdown started and she watched as everyone left the room so they wouldn't be sucked into space in the vacuum.

"9"

Another thing she should really try to fix. It was one pod why did it need a whole room when the escape pods had less space.

"8"

The room was completely empty now. This was her chance.

"7"

She hit enter in her pad and watched for the first camera to shut off

"6"

She started running making sure that she was always a ghost.

"5"

Last minute idea came to her, she saw the respiratory mask they had put on Jim.

"4"

So as she ran she took one from the hook that made sure it wouldn't go into space when the room.

"3"

She had made it to the pod and jumped in. She could only hope that the cameras had done the trick and no one had seen her.

"2"

Making sure everything was closed and sealed she put the mask on her and used one of Jim's belt to tie herself. The last thing she wanted was to be thrown around when this thing moved around in space.

"1"

She watched as the door opened and the pod was sucked into space. Her head hit the side of the pod unfortunately. After all, she was not as secure as Jim was. As she passed out her last thought was a prayer to whoever would listen that she hadn't killed them both.