2269: The Enterprise

When we materialised in the Enterprise's transporter bay, a pretty blonde yeoman was there to meet us.

"Yeoman Rand is a former crew member being given a ride to Earth for her next posting," said Jim, stepping off the transporter pad. "I contacted her while you were undergoing the process and she's agreed to let you share her cabin on the trip home. We'll beam your effects up from the asylum and I'll have them brought to you there."

And with that he was gone, the doors opening then whooshing closed behind him as he headed for the bridge.

"Hi, my name's Janice," said Yeoman Rand holding out her hand.

"Me too," I said, shaking it.

"C'mon, let's get you set up in the cabin."

We headed down the corridor and took a turbolift to the deck Janice's quarters were on, chatting all the way.

"So, you're just hitching a lift?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I was on assignment on Vulcan when the Enterprise stopped by to drop off Mr Spock on its milk run to Elba II - the Enterprise is going to be in spacedock for scheduled maintenance for the next month and Spock elected to take shore leave on his homeworld - so they were able to give me a lift back to Earth where I'm enrolling in Starfleet's transporter school. I'm twenty-nine now and I've been a yeoman long enough."

"Same age as me. What's it like being back aboard the Enterprise after several years away?"

"It feels strange, like returning to a house that used to be your home but isn't any more. Ah, here we are..."

The doors to her quarters whooshed open and Janice showed me in.

"It's a twin-bedded room," she said, "and that one's yours."

I sat down on the bed she'd indicated, and took the tiny holo projector from my purse. I turned it on and it instantly started projecting 3D images in the air above, slowly cycling through them.

"Who's that?" asked Janice.

"Arthur Coleman," I sighed, feeling a strange sensation in my stomach as I looked at the pictures of him.

"Ah, so he's your sweetie!"

"No, not yet, but I hope he will be. In the past I haven't always been as nice to him as I should have. Do you have anyone?"

"Jamie. I can't wait to get together again when I'm back on Earth."

The door buzzed. Someone wanted to see one or other of us. Janice opened it and Lt Uhura entered. She was wearing a dashiki dress and carrying a flask of Saurian brandy.

"What brings you here, ma'am?"

"Please, it's Nyota when I'm off duty, and I'm here to see an old friend."

The two women hugged, then Uhura turned her attention to me.

"Janice Lester," she said. "I hear you're cured now."

"I hope so."

"I hope so, too. I wasn't on board when you tried to take over the ship, but I heard all about it when I got back. That wasn't good, though I understand your frustrations."

"You do?"

"Of course. There isn't a woman on this ship who doesn't. Starfleet policy in respect to female starship captains has never officially changed, yet it's been twenty years since a woman was last appointed. Oh, they say that's just a coincidence, but it's hardly surprising so many of us believe they have a de facto policy against appointing women. The problem is the misogynists on the selection board. They wouldn't have got away with it in the past, but the last twenty years have been the most culturally retrograde we've had to suffer through in quite a while."

"No argument here," I said.

"Your way of breaking through the glass ceiling was a little drastic, though."

"Uhura!"

"It's okay, Janice," I said, "I have to expect curiosity about my body-jacking of Jim Kirk."

"What did it feel like, being a man?" asked Uhura.

"I wish I could tell you," I said, "but I have no memory of what it feels like to have a male body at all. And that's probably for the best. When I recorded all my memories to create this new, saner personality that was one of the things I completely edited out. I was never gender-dysphoric in the traditional sense, never thought I was a man trapped in a woman's body, but I had come to despise being a woman because of how I felt it was holding me back. That sort of self-hate is a terrible thing. I was so extremely ambitious that having that ambition thwarted basically drove me mad. In others ambition can be a good thing but it was clearly dangerous and destructive in me, so it had to go too. I needed to reconnect with my femininity, to rediscover the joy of being a woman."

"And are you?"

"I'm beginning to, yes, though I think I may have overdone the physical vanity in the new me. I seem to be checking my hair and make-up every five minutes."

"Oh," said Janice, looking embarrassed, "I do that every five minutes, too."

We all laughed at this, and it felt good.

"The thought of overwriting a body's original personality and completely erasing it gives me the creeps," said Uhura.

"And if it was done against someone's will I'd agree," I said, "that's totally monstrous and why the device was rightly outlawed in the first place. But this was my choice and the new me was my creation. Janice Lester just became a modified version of Janice Lester. I was in control of the process the whole time. Used like this, the device could have real therapeutic value."

"Yes, but if we made its use acceptable at all it wouldn't just be used like that. Sooner or later someone would start using it the way it originally was. No, safer if you're just a special one-off case."

"You're probably right."

"I know I am. Now how about some glasses so we can share this fine Saurian brandy?"

Janice fetched glasses from the bathroom and Uhura poured. It was some of the best brandy I've ever tasted.

"What are your plans for your shore leave, Nyota?" asked Janice, sipping her brandy.

"I'm beaming down to Kenya," said Uhura, "I need to feel my native soil beneath my feet again and reconnect with family. After that I'll be trekking across the Serengeti. There's a new alien language Starfleet wants me to crack and it always helps if I'm communing with nature while doing so."

"That's right," said Janice, "I always forget you're one of Starfleet's foremost xenolinguists."

"Yes, I'm not just the glorified telephone operator some people seem to think I am. I could easily get a professorship at the university of my choice, but I love the adventure of space exploration too much to be tied down like that. The only language I've always had trouble with is, unfortunately, Klingon. For some reason I've never been able to fully wrap my brain around that damn tongue."

"How about you, Janice?" asked Janice. "What are your plans now you've been released from Elba II?"

"I own an apartment in Oakland - you can see across the bay to Starfleet HQ from my window - so I guess I'll try to pick up the pieces of my life. But my first priority is Arthur. He goes on trial next week and I need to be there for him."

Uhura nodded at me approvingly. I didn't know what it was, but it felt like I'd passed some sort of test with her. And that was it for serious conversation. What followed next was what men dismissively refer to as 'girl talk', punctuated by lots of laughter and brandy drinking. I realised I was really enjoying being with these women. I hardly knew them and there was no reason why they should be friendly toward me, yet they were. The old Janice Lester didn't have any women friends, had had no patience for female company at all. If that was because of something other than her madness then she was an idiot.

Later in the bathroom, after Uhura had returned to her own quarters, I slid out of my dress and examined my body in the wall mirror. I liked what I saw. That's when Janice Rand entered. She was instantly apologetic when she realised she had barged in on me.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to violate your privacy."

"Not a problem. I was just admiring my body and trying to remember when I came to hate it, because the new me loves it."

"So you should," said Janice, "you're beautiful."