Urania, the muse of astronomy and future

Inspiration: Star Trek XI, the reboot. Mmmm, Chris Pine. There are a lot of ST references in this chapter, so a blanket disclaimer at the top. I don't own Star Trek or any of its affiliations.

Seigaku: I'm interpreting a lot with this one, but Echizen burst into Seigaku and altered it much like a comet or a star would. He is also slightly untouchable, again like a star, and aloof and distant from the rest.

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the star ship Seigaku. Its five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before (1).

Captain Tezuka Kunimitsu sighed silently as he walked briskly towards Admiral Ryuuzaki's office. He had just gotten back from the Mars station after being promoted. After being a Commander for three years, he was getting his own ship. And not just any ship, the reporting orders were for the flagship, the USS Seigaku. Tezuka was pleased and proud of this promotion and he was delighted when he was told he would be able to select key members for his crew. He had already chosen Commander Oishi Syuuichirou as his first officer, and Lieutenant Kikumaru Eiji as head of communications. He wanted Lieutenant-Commander Inui Sadaharu as his science officer, Ensign Momoshiro Takeshi for engineering and Ensign Kaidoh Kaoru for weapons and had very politely phrased a missive to their current captains requesting them. He had requested Doctor Kawamura Takashi and he was in the process of stealing Lieutenant-Commander Fuji Syuusuke from the USS Chiba as his navigations officer.

He was still missing a pilot though.

"Don't worry about it," Admiral Ryuuzaki had said in her communication, "I've found you a good one. Report to my office at 0800 (2) hours tomorrow and I'll introduce you.

Tezuka wasn't sure. All the good pilots he knew of were assigned to other ships and were unattainable. The only unassigned pilot he was aware of was Cadet Arai, who was unassigned for a reason; he had a work ethic that wouldn't translate to Tezuka's ship.

If she gave him Arai, he would give him back without pause. Tezuka was planning on running a very tight ship and he couldn't afford carelessness, especially with the pilot.

He straightened his golden shirt as he stood outside the sliding door to Admiral Ryuuzaki's office, still a little uncomfortable with the new pips on his collar, unused to their weight.

He waited for entry and when it was granted, he was almost dreading what he would find inside. He didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what he found inside.

Three days later, the USS Seigaku was docked at Deep Space Nine, preparing to leave. It would leave the station and warp to the uncharted regions of space within two hours so most of the crew was already on board, checking their stations and supplies, making sure they were adequate.

"Oishi!" came the loud cry from down the corridor and the new Commander turned, only to fall to the floor from the impact of someone colliding with him. The bright red hair and green skin of an Orion was plastered in front of him. Since Oishi only knew one Orion well enough to be thrown to the floor, it had to be Eiji.

"Hello Eiji. How have you been?" And with that, the communications officer started on a long, winding monologue of how he was, what he'd done, and 'oh it was so nice to see you again Oishi' and did he want to partake of the traditional Orion greeting?

Oishi turned a shade of red to match Eiji's uniform and stammered out an excuse. Later, when he had calmed down, he was certain that the phrase "saving himself for marriage" had been stuttered and he flushed again at the memory.

They both made their way to the bridge, after stopping off at sickbay to say hello to Kawamura, and checked out their stations. Oishi didn't have a station, per se, but given his position as First Officer and ship's counsellor, he was given a seat on the bridge anyway. He quickly glanced around and saw that the prodigal Fuji was seated at the navigation station already, smiling worryingly as he checked over star charts.

He greeted Inui as Eiji sat down and put in his earphone, checking the frequencies. Inui was a tall Vulcan who had decided to follow in the footsteps of Ambassador Spock and join Starfleet. He was also an anomaly, like the Captain, in that he wore glasses. Oishi knew Tezuka wore them because he was allergic to Rentax (3) but, as far as he was aware, Inui had perfect eyesight. Eventually, the sight of those glasses perched on those pointed ears would drive Oishi to asking Inui why he wore them. He would be told that it was the most logical method of recording conversations and that the data chip in the glasses could then be uploaded into his padd for data collection, and Oishi would leave the topic well alone.

He saw the strong, silent Kaidoh at the weapons console, steely eyes focussed entirely on the inventory on the screen. Oishi thanked Tezuka's wisdom at getting both Kaidoh and Momo on board but making sure that they spent the majority of their time on entirely different decks. Their skills were unparalleled but their fights and verbal spars were also unparalleled, even infamous across the whole alpha quadrant. Bane, house of Rokkaku, the strong and mighty Klingon whom Oishi had met had almost fled in fear when the two began fighting.

Oishi glanced nervously over to the empty pilot's console and chair. They were due to set off in under two hours and Oishi still hadn't met the pilot. He'd contacted Tezuka the previous evening to ask about the mysterious pilot but all he'd found out was that yes they had one and he'd be there tomorrow and to stop worrying.

Oishi thought Tezuka knew him better than that. Oishi would always worry. It's what made him a good First Officer.

One hour and twenty seven minutes later, Tezuka strode onto the bridge and sat authoritatively in his chair. He was dressed crisply in his golden uniform and calmly asked his bridge officers for an update. They went around the room systematically but there was a pause after Fuji had given his piece, everyone subconsciously waiting for the absent pilot's report.

After a few moments, Eiji decided to carry on with the report, skipping the absentee pilot. After all the information had been conveyed, Tezuka paused.

"I'm sure you've all noticed that we're down a member of our crew. Admiral Ryuuzaki recommended a pilot for us and he will be here in a few moments," he said and, no sooner had the words left his mouth, the turbo lift doors opened and attracted the attention of the entire bridge. All eyes turned and saw the short raven haired golden shirted man enter, the two pips on his collar denoting him as a Lieutenant. His dark, black as jet hair was mirrored by his intense golden eyes.

"Aldean?" Inui asked, completely emotionlessly and the newcomer's eyes flickered over to him.

"Vulcan," was the response and the Inui eyed the other up and down, as much as a race of emotionally repressed touch telepaths could.

"Not entirely Aldean though; Aldean males are infertile. Hybrid then," was the conclusion Inui came to and the "hybrid" smirked.

"He looks Betazoid," Fuji smiled from his station, enjoying the drama that was unfolding before him, and the smirk grew even wider.

"Well determined. Is that my station?" this was directed to Tezuka in reference to the empty console at Fuji's left. Tezuka gave a curt nod and the lieutenant walked to it and sat down, performing his checks with deft fingers.

"Lieutenant Echizen Ryoma," Tezuka began to introduce him when it was clear he wouldn't do so himself, "Half-Betazoid, half-Aldean and our new pilot."

After Echizen checked his station and reported back to Tezuka, everything was ready.

"Echizen, release docking clamps and lay in a course Fuji. Set course at warp 6. Engage."

"What have you done to my lady?"

Echizen looked up from his carbonated drink to see the tall, violet eyed chief engineer standing in front of him. He was momentarily confused as to what he'd done to incite this until he remembered. The week before, he'd fiddled around with the input of the engines from his console, rearranging the crystal matrix into a helical structure as opposed to a linear one. It was a spur of the moment thing.

They had gotten back from a bad diplomatic contact and Momoshiro was in sickbay with Kawamura, having his broken arm treated. They needed to warp out quickly, so Echizen fiddled with the crystals, used an Aldean design to increase output.

He'd meant to change it back afterwards but forgotten. Until now.

"I can change it back if you'd like," he said mildly and watched Momoshiro's face. He didn't need his Betazoid blood to understand the emotions running through the engineer. He was torn between displeasure that someone else had fiddled with his lady and pleasure that she was running so much better now.

He was indecisive for a few minutes until-

"Show me how." And Echizen smirked.

After that small tutorial, Echizen noticed that Momoshiro would pop up out of the proverbial woodwork whenever he was off duty to "talk". This translated to him teaching the engineer how to do his job properly. The Aldean half of him was scathing about the apparent deficits in Starfleet training. The Betazed half was grateful for the contact.

But not even an encounter with the Borg would get him to admit that.

The ship rocked from side to side as the shields took damage from the phaser cannons that maintained the heavy barrage of fire. The bridge was jerked about and Eiji even fell out of his chair with the inertia the blast caused. He quickly stood up again and leapt back over to the console, yelling out to the enemy, his consonants harsh and guttural as he ground out the "cease fire" order in Romulan. Tezuka wasn't sure how the situation devolved from the peaceful discussion he was having with the Romulan Commander into this but he was certain Fuji had something to do with it.

He didn't know how but he had learnt that Fuji was nearly always behind the happenings on Seigaku.

"Shields at 60%" he heard Kaidoh say behind him and there was a responding call from Momoshiro in engineering. Before they could get into a fight over the comm, Tezuka demanded Momoshiro do something to get power up.

"I can divert power from the galley to give you an extra burst. Give me a few minutes without the deck shaking and I can get you enough power to jump to warp 7 by rerouting the dilithium crystals. Just stop the place shaking!"

"Echizen," Tezuka snapped.

"I can avoid the blasts, but you might want to hold on to something," the hybrid deadpanned, completely calm in the middle of the storm. His fingers were flying across the padd and suddenly, the Seigaku dropped as though falling through space. It glided underneath the attacking warbird and circled around so that the forward phaser cannons were aimed at the rear of the ship.

"I'm transmitting the co-ordinates of their engines to you now Kaidoh," Inui stated, "Fire there and we should disable their weapons for a few minutes until they can reroute."

"Fshuu," was the only response from the security chief but he fired anyway. There was a pause as the warbird lost phasers and, taking advantage of the lull in attack, Fuji found a course for them to take.

"If we can get the Seigaku into the asteroid field here, we can avoid any more hits until Momoshiro gets power back."

"Fine, give me the course. I'll do it with thrusters," Echizen growled.

They made it to the asteroid field by Echizen's extremely skilled handling of the ship. 'He is a fine pilot,' Oishi thought, pleased with the momentary rest from the action. He gave the bridge a quick scan, checking that the crew had no major injuries. Eiji looked a little bruised and both Fuji and Echizen were sporting bleeding head wounds from where one of the navigation consoles had exploded early in the melee. Other than that, they were dealing remarkably well with the fire fight.

"Ok, Captain," Momoshiro's voice came through the comms, like a siren call, "I can give you warp 7 for a few seconds but then the nacelles are going to burn out. Make good use of it."

"Fuji, plot the course. Echizen, prepare to warp," Tezuka barked and the two officers did as they were bade. They instantaneously warped away from the attacking vessel and, ten seconds later, they were in the midst of Federation space, safe and away from potential enemies.

And that was when the engines gave up. Echizen could almost hear Momoshiro from where he was sat repeating "No, no, no, no" over and over and he could see him in his head, grasping his tricorder and wielding his spanner like a weapon. Echizen had once seen Momoshiro throw the spanner at one of his subordinates when he was frustrated, so he could easily imagine the officers cowering in fear.

"Status reports everyone," Tezuka said and everybody tried to make sense of their sparking consoles to give a readout to the Captain.

"Captain, could it wait a few minutes?" Oishi asked, "Eiji, Fuji and Echizen should get down to Kawamura to get checked over."

Tezuka seemed to understand as he looked over his worse for wear crew. He dismissed the injured parties and asked for them to be replaced by the beta shift officers. Fuji and Eiji quickly abandoned their stations and headed for the turbo lift, knowing not to keep Kawamura waiting. Echizen needed a little more encouragement and had to be dragged to sickbay, the navigator and the linguist on each arm.

When they arrived in sickbay, they saw the after effects of their battle; the room was filled with the injured crewmen from all departments. Echizen recognised a few of the people from engineering and, happily, saw that at least two of them were sporting spanner injuries.

Compared to the rest of the alpha shift, Echizen had only met Kawamura once. He had been polite and kind, asking him about his standard medical values and reference ranges, but he was completely different now. He was shouting at his staff and yelling at his patients with gusto. He could be heard across the room, berating a poor red shirted ensign for wasting his time with such a "first aid problem" and told him to come back "when he had an injury that took a medical degree to treat."

Echizen preferred this Kawamura.

The three bridge staff sat on one of the spare beds and waited for Kawamura to become free. At the current moment in time, he was asking one of the security officers how they became injured.

"I was fine tuning the cannons to enable a higher output of energy in a wider burst-"

"Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not an engineer (4)! The basics!"

Echizen liked this Kawamura.

Almost two hours later, Echizen and the other two bridge crew were released from the clutches of the bipolar doctor. They were sat in the mess, relaxing after the battle. None of them were brave enough to attempt the replicators. After being switched off by Momoshiro for the supplementary power earlier, they seemed to have reset their default settings to Vulcan foods and no-one was in the mood to try plomeek soup.

They did have drinks in front of them and were sat nursing them around the table; Fuji's being the only Earthian drink as Eiji was sipping something bright blue and Echizen was partaking of a drink that smelt distinctly alcoholic. Fuji refrained from making a comment about Echizen and ethanol being in the immediate vicinity of one another, having been present when an unfortunate red shirted ensign jokingly asked if the pilot was old enough to drink the Romulan ale that was in front of him.

Echizen had proceeded to inform the man that his Aldean physiology meant that he was much smaller physically, that he was very capable of handling alcohol and would he mind keeping his nose out of his business?

There was a vicious addition that although he was small, his brain wasn't and next time, the ensign should talk to something on his IQ level. Such as a Cardassian fungal spore.

Fuji liked Echizen. And for any that knew Fuji, it was debateable whether this was a good thing or not.

They made a curious trio: an Orion, a human and a hybrid. It sounded like the beginning to a really bad joke, usually heard in Quark's bar on Deep Space Nine. They were also bandaged and a little bloodied and rough around the edges. Needless to say, they drew attention and it wasn't all good.

"God, I can't even get a drink without being surrounded by aliens," they heard the loud exclamation over the buzzing voices of the rest of the mess hall. As soon as the words had left the inebriated lieutenant's mouth, the buzzing stopped and a disbelieving silence permeated the room. Echizen could pick up on some of the stray thoughts of the others and the general consensus was "What?"

The unfortunate lieutenant continued to rant, oblivious to the silence of the room and the scared faces of table companions as they furiously tried to get him to stop. "Not only do they take over our ship but they take most of the bridge positions. They're probably waiting for us to drop our guard and then they'll attack."

And then, he nailed his coffin deeper. "The ones I hate the most? That Orion and the hybrid. Have you seen the way the Orion hangs off the Commander all the time? Probably trying to get into his bed; after all, that's all Orions are good for. And the hybrid is creepy. Just plain creepy when he stares; like he can see inside you."

Fuji could see the reactions of the entire mess but his attention was mostly on his table companions. Echizen's face had remained in its stoic mask but Eiji's face had fallen, his expressive eyes filling with tears. Fuji was livid. He began to stand to give the culprit a piece of his mind but, before he could rise, he was passed by a furious hybrid.

"Cadet Sasabe, was it?" Echizen purred, his voice barely above a whisper yet still reverberating around the silent mess. The lieutenant in question turned and finally noticed several things. The noiseless crowd, the shocked faces and the large, irate eyes of the aforementioned hybrid.

"Let me make a few things clear to you. You are a human. You are from a small planet, in a small galaxy, in one corner of the universe. There are other life forms out there. Get over it. In the grand scheme of things, amongst all the other planets and stars, you are very insignificant.

"If you cannot handle interacting with alien life, then you should find a new career because Starfleet is not for you. And I shall be reporting the slanderous comment about Lieutenant Kikumaru, who is one of the best linguists I have ever met.

"Be forewarned, there will be disciplinary action. Now go." The previously brave lieutenant ran from the mess hall as quickly as he could, no doubt to try and formulate a way to get back at Echizen, but the pilot didn't care. He walked back to his seat and resumed his drink as the hall gradually regained its previous noise level.

Nothing was exchanged between their table barring a quiet "Thanks Echizen" from Eiji. The pilot smirked and downed his drink.

He was accepted by those he liked and that's all that mattered.

(1) Is it sad that I didn't even need to go and look that up? I spent a lot of my childhood watching re-runs of ST. I blame Dad and Sky One.

(2) Being an army brat, I get a bit annoyed when people try to use the 24hour clock and fail miserably. There are a few points to note: 1. there is no am or pm with the 24hour clock. 2. There is no colon in the middle of the time. 3. There is no such thing as "2200 hours in the morning". End of my rant.

(3) I'm really showing my geekiness here, aren't I? Rentax is the substance used in Star Trek to resolve the need for glasses.

(4) Had to be done. Sorry. DeForest Kelley was a legend.

And this brings us to the end of Inspiring the Creation. Many thanks to everyone for reading to the end and I hope these little one-shots entertained you for a few months.

Now back to the Psi Gene ...

R&R

Bumble x