Disclaimer: I don't own. I don't profit.
Special thanks to beta Notes from the Classroom.
Chapter 9
Leaning back dangerously in her chair, Maggie said, "Now look, I've been here six months, livin' off protein nibs -" she flicked a packet of rations in Jim and Spock's direction and pellets went everywhere. "And I know what is going on here. Punishment, isn't it? For something that was clearly an accident."
"Maggie Scott," said Spock. "Fascinating."
"You know her?" said Jim.
"Not precisely," said the Vulcan.
"So did you bring the food, real food?" said Maggie. "I put in my procurement order months ago, and wrote in a request for chocolate, which isn't a standard item but should be. But at this point any thin' that's not dehydrated is an improvement."
"Ms. Scott," said Spock. "Have you done any research into the possibility of trans-warp beaming?"
Maggie blinked. "That's what put me here!" She stood up and came closer, her hands, clad in cut off gloves began moving animatedly in the air. "You know...it's not so much that are ships move...it's that space moves!" Her eyes got very wide for a second, and then she paced away. "Or that's what I postulated. But Admiral Archer's beagle..."
Remembering warm afternoons and discussions of battle strategy punctuated by a friendly wet nose, Jim said, "Rufus? I know that dog, what happened to him?"
Coughing Maggie said, "Errrr...I'll tell you when he reappears."
Jim did his best to not swallow.
Not seeming to notice, Maggie continued. " I'm still not certain Olson didnna have somethin' to do with Rufus' disappearance. He never did like me – Olson, I mean, I got along fine with Rufus. His sister neither - Olson's sister, I mean, she didnna like me much, always got all upset when I was discussin' relative physics with Chekov. She was a real odd one...
"...I do feel really guilty about it," she said turning to Jim and Spock. "Rufus, I mean, not the Olson clan's oddness."
"Um, yeah," said Jim, still thinking about Rufus, and not sure Maggie was one to speak of oddness. Olson, Olson, where had he heard that name before? Was that the guy who died on Nero's rig?
"What if I told you your transwarp theory is correct," said Spock. "That it is indeed possible to beam aboard a ship traveling at warp speed?"
"I'd tell you I know!" said Maggie with gusto. Slumping back down in her chair she said, "But you'd have to convince the brass of that."
"Fascinating," said Spock.
"I don't find bureaucratic politics all that fascinating myself," said Maggie, elbows on her knees, face sinking into her hands. Staring down at the ground she said, "You piss off one Admiral..." She sighed.
"Perhaps a real world demonstration is in order," said Spock. "Do you have a transporter?"
"What...yes, well...not strictly speaking, but I did fix the broken, non-Starfleet issued transporter on the shuttle grounded here. What are you plannin' on transportin' and where?"
"I am planning to transport the two of you aboard the Enterprise," said Spock.
"Us?" said Jim and Maggie in unison.
"Yes. Jim needs to regain his rightful place as Captain; you Ms. Scott, need to be Engineer of the Enterprise."
"Well, yeah," said Maggie scratching behind an ear, "That is obvious."
Brow furrowing Jim said, "How exactly am I supposed to become Captain?"
"Starfleet protocol 719," said Spock. Before Jim had a chance to respond, the elder Vulcan looked at Maggie. "Is that the shuttle over there?"
"Yeah," said Maggie standing from her chair.
"I'm supposed to emotionally compromise her?" said Jim to Spock's back as they made their way through the bits of machinery lying about the room that may have been a hangar at one point.
Stopping, Spock turned around. "Jim," he said, "She just watched the destruction of her planet. Believe me, she is emotionally compromised."
Remembering T'Spock's cold unflinching stare as they argued, Jim took a deep breath. He wasn't so sure.
Spock turned around and began walking towards the shuttle again. "Ms. Scott," he said, "if I give you the estimated coordinates, can you input them into your equation?"
"Sure!" she said happily skipping to keep up with Spock. "I wonder if they'll have chocolate?"
A few minutes later, Spock and Maggie were huddled over a computer monitor.
"There ya' go," said Maggie. "This will put us on the Enterprise."
"If you would not mind," said Spock, hands going to the controls.
"I thought you said you believed in my theory!" said Maggie, pulling her hat from her head and looking indignant.
"I do," said Spock. "But your coordinates need a bit of modification."
Narrowing her eyes, Maggie moved to the side, "All right, show me."
Spock pressed a few buttons. Maggie's posture eased. "Oh, would you look at that, I forgot to carry the one!" Smiling at Jim, she said, "Not to worry though, we would have decompressed before we'd even known what happened to us."
Swallowing, Jim looked at Spock. "You are coming with us, aren't you?"
Eyeing Maggie, now looking down at the monitor and scratching her ear again, Spock said, "I think that would be best."
A few minutes later Jim materialized in engineering just behind Spock. Grinning, he said, "It worked."
Looking side to side, Spock said, "The layout is a little different than my Enterprise."
"Hey," said Jim, "Where's Maggie?"
"I am trying to ascertain that," said Spock.
A metallic clinking sounded behind Jim.
Spinning he found himself facing a large water intake tube. Heart sinking, Jim yelled, "Maggie? Maggie, can you hear me?"
The tank clinked from the inside...and then the clinking sank.
"This is problematic," said Spock with what was apparently a habit for understatement. The elder Vulcan looked to the side.
Following his gaze, Jim saw Maggie exhaling bubbles in a length of clear horizontal piping. And then her body was sucked down the pipe.
Peeling off the parka he'd donned on Delta Vega, Jim chased after her. "Hold on!" he yelled uselessly. There was nothing in the tube to hold on to.
He didn't think the situation could get any worse, but then she was sucked vertically towards a water turbine.
Racing towards the nearest terminal, he activated a turbine release valve. Right before the turbine blades, a hatch opened in the piping. At least half a ton of water and a furiously coughing Maggie came crashing down from the ceiling.
Kneeling down beside her Jim said, "Are you alright?"
Maggie coughed up a bit of water and began peeling off her heavy parka.
"My head is buzzin' and I'm soaked, but otherwise I'm fine," she said, dumping the parka to the side.
Jim blinked. Actually, with less clothes and after a bath...
"Come, we must go," said Spock. And damn if the Vulcan didn't know him well.
x x x x
Noyoto was surveying engineering's diagnostics of the subspace array and T'Spock was talking to Amanda when Chekov said, "Captain, there was an unauthorized access to a water turbine control board."
Looking up, Noyoto saw T'Spock walking to Chekov's station.
Noyoto looked over to Amanda. She smiled at him. A sad sort of smile, but hopeful, too. Oddly, Noyoto found himself able to smile back.
"Bring up the video," said T'Spock.
Noyoto and Amanda turned to the screen...and saw Kirk and two other people in engineering.
Leaning forward and hitting the intercom, T'Spock said, "Security to engineering deck, we have intruders in water turbine section 3. Set phasers to stun."
Noyoto tilted his head. T'Spock still seemed unnaturally calm. Tranquil even. Her voice was completely neutral, almost disinterested, and he hadn't seen her do so much as raise an eyebrow.
x x x x
"Halt," the red shirt yelled. Jim spun to run the other way and nearly collided with Spock and Maggie.
Looking past them he saw a familiar large figure with the business end of a phaser pointed in his direction.
"Uh...Hi, Cupcake," said Jim.
The large man sighed, "Ah, Kirk, why'd you have to go and cause trouble. Now I gotta haul you up to the bridge. There are worse places than Delta Vega, you know."
"You're in luck," said Maggie, "The bridge is just the place we wanna be!"
Cupcake's eyes went past Jim, "Uh, hello, Ma'am. Um...really?" He looked back to Jim for the briefest of moments.
"Really, Cupcake," said Jim.
Eyes glued to Maggie, Cupcake sputtered. "Um...well...after you, Ma'am."
Maggie walked past Jim, hands in the air, and smiled at Cupcake.
Jim tried to move, but Cupcake's forearm shot up to block his way. Motioning to Spock and the other security officers to follow Maggie, he leaned down and whispered to Jim, "Are you and her?"
"What?" said Jim.
Face and bald head going completely red, Cupcake said again, "Are you and her..."
"Oh!" said Jim shaking his head. "No...no..." Even if when she was wet she actually really was kind of cute.
"Do you think you can put in a good word for me?" asked Cupcake.
"Sure, if you can get me to the bridge." said Jim watching Spock and Maggie disappear around the corner.
"Oh, yeah! Right, of course, of course!" said Cupcake.
x x x x
"Who are you?" said T'Spock, eyeing the drenched woman and older male Vulcan who came through the turbolift doors with Kirk and security.
The Vulcan was silent. The woman said, "I'm..."
"They're with me," said Kirk.
Kirk was already getting in the way of her orders. One part of her mind wanted to lash out at him - for his earlier attempt at mutiny...but another part of her mind grasped the potential of what his presence here represented.
"We are travelling at warp speed," said T'Spock walking slowly forward, "How did you manage to beam aboard this ship?"
The older Vulcan was silent.
"You're the genius, you figure it out," said Kirk.
"As acting Captain of this vessel, I order you to answer the question," said T'Spock. She did not have time for these games.
"Well, I'm not telling. Acting captain."
T'Spock stood immobilized. Kirk's windpipe looked so soft and vulnerable. They were equally matched physically. But if she reached his mind, she could kill him telepathically...and very slowly...her vision went green.
A memory came back to her, not hers, Sarek's. She remembered a time he'd caught a human male trying to attack her mother. Sarek had the opportunity to crush the man's windpipe, or kill him telepathically...and had stewed over the idea exactly as she did now.
Her urge to kill, or more to the point...the strength of that urge, was Vulcan.
Her control, of all things, her expressions - the way she nearly slipped into an illicit relationship with Noyoto...these were human. The way she could grasp the potential for transwarp beaming and how that could be utilized to attack Nero, and more than that, how she could conceive so easily of going against orders to do that - that was human too.
She looked down. It was strange to see herself from the outside and the inside at once. It was stranger still to see how much her father admired her for it. She suddenly felt more powerful, more comfortable in her own skin than she ever had in her entire life.
"What, now that doesn't bother you?" said Kirk.
She looked up to see him smiling at her.
"Can I have a towel?" said the woman.
Ignoring the woman, T'Spock said, "Of course it bothers me. I have only one home world left, that is Earth, and if it is still your desire to hunt Nero down and defeat him, you will desist this game immediately."
She blinked. "This is a game, is it not?"
Kirk's smile dropped. He swallowed. "Are you serious?" He said quietly.
T'Spock quelled a human desire to snap, of course I am, I am Vulcan. Instead she took a step forward and said, "Very."
A/N:
The Olsons are a nasty pair that I borrowed from Notes From the Classroom's brilliant "People Will Say". They're believable nasty too, one of the best villians I've seen written is Andrea Olson.
Anyhoo-One thing I don't like about genderbenders is when the guy becomes a girl and the girl is just smarter and better than the guy. I hope it is clear where T'Spock's extra control is coming from.
Thanks to everyone for reviewing – and special thanks to those of you who have recommended this story!