"What is it?" Admiral James T. Kirk asked as he looked out the viewscreen of the Enterprise, which he was on because of a diplomatic mission.

"I'm not sure, Sir," Lieutenant Ashley Jarvis, the pilot, replied. "But there are human life signs…but it's too small to be a ship."

"Anything else?"

"It has some sort of power source."

"I'm on my way to the transporter room. Get a lock on it."

Jim headed for the transporter room, along with Captain Spock, who acquired a phaser on the way. Montgomery Scott, who usually went along with Jim on missions, was at the controls when they entered the transporter room. "You got a lock, Scotty?" Jim asked.

"Yes, Sir," Scotty answered.

"Energize."

Soon, the object appeared on the transporter pad. Jim and Spock walked over to it, but they found it was not just an "it", but it looked like a metal android. "What is it?" Jim asked. "Lieutenant Jarvis said there were life signs."

"Perhaps the doctor is better qualified to answer that question," Spock said.

Jim opened his communicator. "Bones," he said.

"Yeah," Dr. Leonard McCoy, who also always went on missions with Jim, answered.

"We need you in the transporter room…and bring a medical tricorder."

Dr. McCoy soon arrived, and he stopped as he saw what was on the transporter pad. He opened his tricorder to do a scan. "There's a man in this," he declared. "Where did he come from?"

"He was floating in space," Jim said. "Is he alive?"

"Yes. Let's get him to the medical bay."

When the man was in the medical bay, Jim, Spock, and Bones stood looking at him. The reason for their confusion was that the man was dressed in what appeared to be metal armor that covered his whole body. It was red in color except for some gold that included a gold faceplate. There were two slits where eyes would be and even the mouth, although they were not open. On the chest was a glowing piece.

"What's that?" Jim asked.

"That…is a power source," Bones replied.

"Well, how do we get him out of there? Is he okay?"

"He appears to be. But that power source seems to go into his chest."

Spock was analyzing the power source. "Interesting," he said. "It is some sort of arc reactor…an endless power source."

Jim leaned over the face and knocked on it. "It's definitely metal. Hey, wake up in there."

Nothing happened for a moment, but then the eyes lit up. Jim was rather startled and stepped back as the man sat up. Then he jumped off the biobed and got into a fighting stance holding his open palm toward them, which also had a glowing light in the center.

"Hold on!" Jim said. "We're not trying to hurt you."

"Who are you?" the man asked sounding out of breath, but his voice also sounded synthesized.

"I'm Admiral James T. Kirk. This is Captain Spock, and Doctor McCoy. You're on my ship."

The man looked around him. "A ship?" he asked. "In space?"

"Yes. A starship."

"Where are we?"

"Right now, we're in space."

"What happened to Hammer?"

Jim paused a moment. "You're the only one we found."

"So, we're a long way from Earth?"

"Yes."

The man relaxed then. "I'm not sure what happened," he said. "Where did you find me?"

"Floating in space," Jim said.

"And there was no one else?"

"No. Who are you?"

"I'm…Ironman."

"Ironman? You're human under all that, right?"

"Well, I say I am, but some people may think otherwise," he answered, seeming to mumble the last part to himself. "So, what kind of fancy contraption is this?"

"Contraption? You mean the Enterprise?"

"The Enterprise," he said thoughtfully. "That's quite a name. How long did it take you to come up with that?"

Jim scowled at that remark. "How long did it take you to come up with Ironman? And I didn't actually come up with the name of this ship. Starfleet did. Where did you come from? Earth?"

"Yeah. What kind of technology you got on this thing?"

"Wait a minute. What is your name? And how did you get into out in the middle of space like this?"

"Well, how did you get here?"

"In this ship."

The other reached up as though he would scratch his head, but his finger clanged on the metal. "Okay. I guess you got me there." He opened his face mask, revealing his face. He had black hair, brown eyes, and a thin mustache and beard. "I'm Tony Stark. You may have heard of me?"

Jim considered that. "No. I haven't."

"I'm a billionaire genius, philanthropist, some people call me a narcissist, but…"

Jim shook his head. "Still no."

"How long have you been in space?"

"Well, right now, we've been here about six days. What about you?"

"Six days…" Stark was silent a moment as he looked around him at the technology in the ship. "This may sound a little strange, but what year is it?"

"Twenty-two Seventy-six," Spock said.

Stark's eyes widened slightly at that answer. "What?"

"Oh boy, don't tell me we have another time traveler," Bones said.

Jim was silent a moment. "And just what year should it be for you?" he asked.

Stark seemed to be contemplating something. "Never mind. You didn't see a ship?"

"No. Just you. Where are you from, and how did you get here?"

"Do you have scanners? Shields?"

"Of course. You need to tell us what's happening."

"Captain!" Ashley said.

Spock pressed the intercom button on the wall. "Spock here."

"Captain, there's a ship approaching."

"What kind of ship?"

"I'm not sure. I've never seen one like it."

Jim looked at Stark. "Shields up! Red alert!" he said. "We'll be right there." Spock ended the transmission. "Come with us," Jim said to Stark.

Stark followed them from the medical bay. "Explanation!" Jim demanded.

"I'm not sure how I ended up here," Stark replied. "But that ship belongs to Justin Hammer if that's who I think it is. He was a competitor, and he got so greedy and jealous that he broke this criminal terrorist genius out of prison and employed him to create an army of smart robots, but he turned on him, etcetera, etcetera…anyway, he went to prison, he broke out, and all he wants is revenge. Did I mention that the criminal genius was the one who broke him out?"

"And now they're on that ship after you?"

"Yeah."

"And you've gotten us in the middle of this."

"Me? I don't even know how I got on this ship!"

They entered the Bridge and could see the ship on the viewscreen. "Are they hailing us?" Jim asked.

"No, Sir," Ashley answered. "They have heavy shielding. I can't tell what kind of weapons they have."

"Trust me, you do not want to find out!" Tony Stark said. "You should get out of here. You have nothing to combat that ship."

Jim glared at him slightly. "And just how do you know?" he asked.

Stark scowled. "Well, he's a weapons genius. He can get past your shields. He has ex-wife missiles. They can…"

"Wait a minute!" Bones said. "What did you say?"

"Not now, Bones," Jim interrupted.

"I'm telling you," Stark said. "He even has Jericho missiles. You can't…"

"Admiral, we're being hailed," Uhura said.

"On Screen," Jim replied.

A man appeared on the screen whom probably no one would see as a threat. He looked like a geek with glasses, blond hair, blue eyes. "I see you've found my friend…or maybe I should say my enemy. Let me have him or I'll destroy you along with him."

Jim glared at him. "You might not find that as easy as you think," he said. "End transmission!"

"You can't fight him," Stark declared.

"We have the most advanced ship in Starfleet."

"Admiral, he's powering up weapons!" Ashley said.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Jim said. "Return fire!"

Stark grabbed Jim by the arm. "You can't fight him!" he said.

"Take your hand off the admiral," Spock demanded.

Stark looked into the end of the phaser which Spock now had aimed at his exposed head. He removed his hand. "Your shields won't be enough!" he insisted.

Suddenly, the Enterprise was hit but not like it normally was in a battle. As Tony Stark had warned them, the missile fired by Hammer broke into several small missiles which hit the ship in several places with a very powerful explosion.

"Shields down to fifty percent, Admiral!" Ashley said.

"Fire back!" Jim commanded.

The Enterprise fired proton torpedoes which slightly weakened the shields of the other ship. "Let's get out of here!" Jim said.

Ashley turned the ship around, barely avoiding the next missile aimed at the ship. However, as the missile broke into smaller missiles, they locked onto the Enterprise, penetrating the shields with the explosion.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Jim said.

Ashley got the ship away and they went to warp before their new enemy could fire at them again. Jim turned to Stark. "Now, you have some explaining to do!" he said.

Stark frowned. He thought he was always the one who had explaining to do. He followed Jim Kirk from the Bridge, shedding his Ironman armor as they went. Bones was following and could hardly believe what he was seeing as the armor just followed Stark.

When they were in the conference room, Stark deactivated the armor as it stood in the corner. Then he turned to face Jim folding his arms. He was about 5'9" and they could all see he was fit, but what they noticed most was the glowing circle on his chest. "I don't really know any more than you do about how I got here," he said. "So don't ask me."

"What do you know?" Jim asked. "Where did you come from? Who is that guy out there? And what is that?" Jim pointed to the armor.

"You want me to answer all those in order?" Stark asked in his annoyingly nonchalant way.

"I don't care. I want to know what all this is about…and what's that glowing thing on your chest?"

Tony scratched his chin out of habit, as he usually did when he was annoyed at people who asked questions he did not want to answer. "This may take a while," he said. "Can we sit down?"

"Why not?"

They sat down at the conference table. Stark just sat there a moment trying to figure out how he could explain the situation. He always seemed to have trouble explaining situations. "Well, I think the first question was what do I know. I…know quite a lot, but I am from Earth, although it looks like my legacy isn't much remembered."

"Where on Earth?" Jim asked.

"California. I hope that is a place you know."

"Yeah. So go on."

"I'm from the year two-thousand twelve."

"So you're more than two-hundred years in the future. How?"

"I'm not sure. One minute I was fighting Hammer, the next, I'm here."

"Who is that guy? Why is he after you?"

"He's a competitor. I've beaten him at everything, and he hates me since I got him put in prison by messing up his plans, although his partner had a hand in that too. He wants to kill me."

"And you don't know how you got to this century."

"No. I know we created a huge explosion. Maybe it somehow disrupted time."

"So, how do we stop him?"

"I can probably help enhance your shields and help make your torpedoes more powerful. I have to say I've never been on a ship like this."

Jim leaned on the table. "I haven't even decided whether to trust you or not."

"I'm not sure I trust you either, so I guess that makes us even, doesn't it?"

"What's that thing on your chest?"

"An arc reactor. Keeps me alive."

"It keeps you alive?" Bones asked. "How?"

"By keeping shrapnel out of my heart."

"Shrapnel?"

"Yeah. You know, tiny metal shards."

"Why haven't they been removed?"

"Isn't it obvious? It also powers the suit."

Jim looked at the red and gold suit. "I'm kinda confused about that," he said. "But where would he go to try and find you?"

"I'm assuming he'll wanta go to Earth, although he likely doesn't know he's over two-hundred years in the future."

"We're a long way from Earth," Jim informed him. He thought the guy was telling him the truth. "So how did you defeat him the last time?"

"I didn't actually defeat him. He was mostly defeated by his own greed. I actually had to defeat the army of giant metal soldiers he created with the help of his terrorist, criminal partner who hacked into them and tried to kill me and terrorize the city."

"So this guy is a criminal genius."

"You could say that but he's not really a genius. I mean, his technology is usually defective."

"Those missiles he fired were not defective," Jim said.

"No. Uh, those were mine."

"So you're a weapons developer."

"For the U.S. military."

"In short, we've got a homicidal maniac out there with weapons powerful enough to take out this ship."

"That sounds familiar," Bones said.

"Admiral, what do you suggest we do?" Spock asked.

Jim considered that. "Well, we have to figure out how to stop that guy," he said. "We'll have to get word to Starfleet about this. Spock, get Uhura to send a message to Starfleet about what's going on here."

"Yes, Admiral."

Jim just looked at Stark as Spock left the room. Stark leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "You can't really blame this on me," he said.

"I realize that," Jim replied. "How did you get in this situation?"

"That is a long story. I would think you would be more concerned with repairing your ship than with how I got here."

"The ship is being repaired. Our problem now is figuring out where this guy will go and what he's going to do next."

"But you should be preparing to meet up with him again. It's inevitable if I'm with you."

"You may be right. Just what could you know about our technology?"

"Probably nothing right now, but if I studied it, I can help you."

"How do I know you're not just after it yourself?"

"I'm a hero, not a villain."

"Right." Jim considered that. "You just go back to the medical bay with the doctor and we'll talk again later. I can't just let you snoop around in the ship."

"So, I'm your prisoner although I tried to help you when they could have destroyed this ship?"

"No. You're not a prisoner. I'm just not sure what you are."

"I told you the truth. What else can I do?"

"Right now, you can cooperate and let the doctor examine you. We'll go from there."

Stark stood up. "Well, I do know what kind of weapons he's using and what sort of shielding you need to stop them," he said. "Just let me know of you want me to help."

"I'm sure we will."

Jim sat there as they left. He was not sure what to do in this situation, and he wondered where that guy, Hammer, would go. They would have to do something about him. He could be a danger to a lot of people, and he was sure the guy would not give up so easily to find Tony Stark. Jim had to wonder why he was so bent on revenge toward Stark. He would just have to talk more to Stark about that.