2270: San Francisco General Hospital

Having experienced it for myself I now understood why they refer to giving birth as 'labor', but all that effort and all that pain paled into insignificance when measured against the joy I felt at finally holding my baby in my arms. I was propped up in bed in the maternity ward while she focussed her bright, curious eyes on my visitor.

"What are you calling her?" asked Janice Rand.

"Grace Athena Coleman."

"Ooh, I like that. Grace is a good, strong name."

"Thanks. We named her for Arthur's mother. There are great things ahead for this baby girl; I can feel it in my bones."

""""""

2271: Starfleet HQ, San Francisco

"It's been nine months since our five year mission ended and they moved Enterprise into spacedock for a major refit and rebuild," said Uhura, taking a swig of her contraband Romulan ale, "and it'll be another eighteen months at least before they finish. In the meantime I think I'm starting to go stir-crazy. I need to be out there!"

"Hey, you agreed to stay with her rather than transfer out. An extended stay on Earth was always part of the deal if you did that," said Janice Rand, "and apart from Spock and Doctor McCoy, you all did."

"You forgot Jim Kirk," I said.

"No I didn't. He got promoted to Admiral as his reward for the success of our five year mission. Although since promotion meant giving up his captaincy of the Enterprise I'm not sure he sees it as a reward."

"I like his advocacy in his new role," I said. "It's about time someone gave the old guard a kick up the backside and pushed for the appointment of female starship captains being made a priority. As he's been so forcefully pointing out, the perception there's a glass ceiling when it comes to promoting women is damaging to Starfleet."

"I never thought I'd see the day," said Uhura, shaking her head. "Don't get me wrong, I love that man but gender politics were never his strong suit. So 'James T. Kirk: feminist hero' is going to take a little getting used to."

"Well, as Chief of Starfleet Operations he certainly has the clout. Nice to see it being put to good use," I said.

The three of us were in Janice's tiny quarters at Starfleet HQ, drinking Uhura's Romulan Ale and shooting the breeze. Now that we were currently all based on Earth - not that I had a choice in the matter - these get togethers had become a regular and very welcome occurrence, a night out just for me while I left Arthur at home minding the baby.

"How is the transporter training coming along?" asked Uhura.

"Even better than I'd hoped," said Janice, with a grin. "I applied to join the Enterprise transporter team when they finish the refit and I got accepted. Looks like we're going to be crewmates again, Nyota."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" said Uhura, giving her a hug. "Though you might not be so happy when you see the new uniforms they're going to make us all wear. They're not good."

"Have they appointed a replacement captain yet?" I asked.

"Yes, some hot-shot named Willard Decker," said Uhura, "son of the late Commodore Matt Decker and hand-picked by Jim Kirk himself, apparently. It's going to be weird serving aboard the Enterprise under someone else. I wonder if this Decker has got what it takes?"

""""""

2273: Oakland

"So Will Decker sacrificed himself to save our world?" said Arthur.

"Technically, he merged with a machine intelligence and became a higher form of being," said Janice Rand, who had come to visit with us as soon as the emergency had passed, "but, yes, he sacrificed himself to save Earth. I was at my post in Enterprise's transporter room most of the time so I missed out on all the action."

"Not as much as we did down here on Earth," I said. "Communications were out across the globe for a while, but apart from that the sole effect of V'Ger's incursion into our space was a spectacular lightshow."

"Fireworks," said Grace, snuggled up on the sofa between me and her father, "liked fireworks. Can we have fireworks again, mommy?"

"Oh, I'm sure there'll be fireworks again, Gracie," I said, ruffling her hair, "whether you want them or not, there always are."