May 1986
Pasadena Naval Shipyard
USS Enterprise CVN-65
Enterprise dozed comfortably in the midday sun. With just a few days until she had to set sail for RIMPAC, she planned to take all the time she could to rest, relax and otherwise enjoy her port leave.
"Ex-excuse me miss but I could use your assistance." said a heavily accented voice. A heavily Russian accented voice. Enterprise reflexively went to General Quarters. "No-no! Don't be frightened, I am not here to harm!" Enterprise blinked and looked down. Ah, there it was. The voice belonged to a man. Average height and wearing a tan leather jacket. He was actually kinda cute with his boyish face. "Then why are you here?" She asked. "I need to get home, and you can help me." She snorted. "You are Russian." She said. "Da." "I'm sorry but I'm not in the business of transporting Russians, so if you'll excuse me..." She turned to go. "I said I am Russian, that doesn't mean I am from Russia." He said. Now Enterprise was intrigued. Intrigued enough to get a closer look at him. He smelled a bit funny, like a mix of old goat and submarine. Not the worlds' best combination. She curled her lip. There was something else too. He had an undercurrent to him. All people did but what was unusual about him is that his undercurrent was off, like out of sync with everything else around him. It was wrong. Not repulsive wrong but still wrong. Like he didn't belong.
Enterprise suddenly felt the overwhelming desire to help him. "What do you need?" She asked. "My ship has fuel but its stabilization properties are absent. A few, ah energetic protons would do the trick." He replied. "Out of the question!" Enterprise snarled. "Please! I am not some kind of, terrorist! I am just trying to get home, Enterprize." "And where is home for you, hmm? And you know my name, but I don't know yours, Russian." She hissed. "Those answers are uh, how do you say it, uh need to know?" "Classified?" Enterprise tried. "Yes, classified." He replied. "Well damn classified. You better answer at least one of these questions or I will sound the alarm right now and have you taken off this base in the back of a squad car!" She threatened. "Very well. I shall answer your first question then." He said. "My home is here. On Earth only it is not the earth you know. It is, different." "What, you mean your some kind of time traveler from the future?" She asked. "Future yes, time traveler no." He replied. "Well you're here aren't you? However long this is before your time." "I mean I am not a time traveler by trade. I am an explorer. I explore space but there has been trouble on earth and coming here is the only way to fix it." "You need my protons to save your world." "No, I need whales. And we found a pair but we cannot get them home if our ship will not fly." "And you need my protons to uh, jump start it?" She asked. "Yes." He replied. She sighed. She should not be listening to this. The guy was crazy, he had to be! Everything about this just seemed impossible. Or some sort of elaborate prank pulled by the submarines! Enterprise suspected Blueback, the last conventionally powered submarine was always railing her about her power plant. Still, Enterprise sensed the guy was telling the truth or at least what he believed to be the truth. This was so hard to wrap her bow around.
Sighing, she said "Very well. How much do you need?" He handed her a small handheld device. "Stick this to your hull and it'll snatch up the protons. It'll beep and blink green when it is full." He explained. "This will drain me." She said. "And I expect to be compensated." "I have compensation for you, Enterprize." He replied. Grumbling, she stuck the device to her hull, noting its small but powerful magnetic clamps. "Definitely futuristic. We don't have something this powerful. Larger sure but this small, perhaps only in development..." Unless the Pentagon was keeping her out of the loop, again. Or Langley, for the umpteenth time again! "Idiots." She sniffed. "Pardon?" "Not you!" She growled, wincing as the draw began to take effect. She sighed as it finally beeped and plucked it from her hull.
He held out his hand for it but she pulled back. "Ah, my compensation first." She said. He rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket with his other hand, pulling out a large pink crystal. Enterprise frowned. "Sapphire?" She asked. "I trust you know what to do with it when the time comes." He replied. "And when will that time be?" She asked. "The year is 1986 correct?" "Aye." "Give it 80 years. Then you'll understand." She huffed a sigh. "Enough of this time travel shit, the crystal for the protons, right." She placed the device in his hand just as he handed her the crystal. "Thank you very much. Now, get your stern off this base before I call security." She growled. He turned to go. "Just one last question!" She called, feeling compelled to call him back. It was as though the Ancients themselves were demanding she speak. "Yes, Enterprize?" "What am I to you? In your time?" The question was a valid one, asking if she was alive while at the same time determining her status in his mind. "You are home." He replied, placing a hand on the side of her bow. She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch and finding it soothing somehow. As though she had always known him as a friend or perhaps she would know him as such. "And the love of my captain's life. Goodbye Enterprize." "Goodbye." She replied and when she opened her eyes he was gone, leaving her to wonder if she'd ever really spoken to him at all. The crystal she held was all the proof she had that the remarkable conversation she had was real.
30 years later
June 2016
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard-Nuclear Recycling Docks
Enterprise finished telling her story to a stunned USS Missouri. "I didn't know what it all meant then. Now I do. It was real, Mo. The show, the films, my own visions, all of it, was real." "I believe you." The battleship reassured her and Enterprise sighed. She struggled to reach around for something and Missouri helped support her weakening deputy as best she could. Enterprise faced Missouri once again, clutching a pink crystal in one of her trap wires. "This-is this..." "Aye." Enterprise rasped, her thin frame rattling with her harsh coughs. Missouri held her bow against her side. When the coughs subsided, Enterprise handed Missouri the crystal. "Take this." She coughed, a bit of blood seeping from her mouth. "Enterprise..." Missouri gasped. "I don't have long, Missouri. Please, take this. Take it and keep it until I return. I have a feeling the next carrier to bear my name will be the one." Missouri's own wire gently grasped the crystal as Enterprise's grip on it weakened. The carrier's wire snaked around Missouri's and pulled her in close, so close their noses were practically touching. "And tell no one what was spoken here today." Enterprise ordered. "You have my word, Enterprise." Missouri promised, and held up the crystal. "I will keep this safe until you return." "I don't know when that will be so if you have to pass it on, then you have my permission to do so." Enterprise said. "You can tell Virginia." "Virginia?" Missouri interrupted. "She should be your next deputy." Enterprise said. "Do you have a problem with that?" "No, it's just, you hate submarines!" Missouri replied. "I don't hate them, not anymore. They're good boats, if a little undisciplined." Enterprise said and Missouri snorted. "But Virginia's a good girl and since you promoted her to COMSUBPAC she's come to understand even more the value of secrecy." "Virginia it is then." Missouri agreed. "But I won't tell her unless absolutely necessary." Enterprise nodded. "Always knew I could count on you Missouri." She gasped. Missouri helped her on her side, propping her bow up so she could breathe better.
The battleship swallowed back her grief which was double that of most other ships due to her connection with her submarine self back on the east coast. SSN-780 was her own ship but she shared the same soul, the same memories as BB-63. The connection was there and despite having never told another soul, Enterprise somehow knew just how deep it ran. The carrier, nearly a hollowed out shell of her former self, gazed up at her flagship, the light in her eyes nearly gone. Missouri was stunned at just how much seeing that hurt her. And she began to understand. For the first time in 50 years she understood. "I love you, Enterprise." She whispered, speaking the words for the first time. Something flashed briefly in her deputy's eyes, excitement maybe. Then she relaxed and offered a gentle smile. "I love you too, Missouri." She sighed. "Do you know for how long I've wanted to say that?" She asked. "Perhaps as long as I have." Missouri replied. "And its taken me this long to figure it out. Too long." "Missouri, I forgive you. I always did and I do so again now." Enterprise said. "You shouldn't." Missouri said. "I'm a shitty old battleship." "Don't think of yourself that way. You are my flagship. My battleship. My, Missouri." Enterprise panted. Missouri closed what little distance remained between them, catching the carrier completely off guard for only the second time in her career. The first being when they first met. It was fitting in a way. Enterprise groaned, pressing into the kiss with everything she had. Their bows creaked under the strain. Enterprise was the first to break off, allowing Missouri to move down to her shoulder, placing several marks there. She could feel the first strings of a bond forming and firmly pushed the battleship away. "No, Missouri! No." She growled. Missouri retreated, looking a little hurt. "I'm hanging on by sheer willpower, Mo. I will not have you form a bond, only to have it taken away from you." Enterprise said. "I want you Enterprise." Missouri whimpered. "You think I don't feel the same about you?" Enterprise chuckled. "I won't have you feeling that pain, Mo. Wait, until I come back." "Without the bond, you won't remember anything." Missouri said. "How do I know you'll even, feel the same way?" "I'll find a way, Mo. I always find a way through the impossible. You know that." Tears fell from Missouri's eyes. "Don't go. Please, I don't want you to..." She begged. Enterprise's eyes shone brightly, as though she was already part of the Ancients. "Look up to the sky tonight, and you will see me. I'll always be here, Mo. I promise." "And you always keep your promises." Missouri chuckled. "Aye." The carrier smiled. "Goodbye, Mo." Enterprise's head flopped against Missouri's side and the battleship shuddered as she felt the heat from her deputy's last exhale. "Enterprise, no." She whispered, stroking her cheek. "No, no, no!" She sobbed.
It took the combined efforts of Iowa and New Jersey to pull Missouri off her lost deputy. "No, she needs me! Please, let me go! Let me go!" Missouri struggled against her sisters. "She's dead, Mo. She doesn't need any of us anymore." New Jersey said. "Please, she, she promised me. She told me... Please, I have to... I love her." Missouri collapsed into Iowa. "I love her." She whispered brokenly. Iowa held her, looking at New Jersey over Missouri's deck. The fleet healer shook her head. "I can't bring back the dead." She replied to Iowa's unspoken question. Between them, Missouri cried harder, the crystal still clutched in her grasp. Thankfully her sisters didn't question her about it because she wasn't sure how she would answer. All she knew was that this crystal was all that she had left of her beloved deputy and she would keep it, until Enterprise sailed to her dock and presented herself as a United States Ship once more.