2285: Starfleet HQ, San Francisco

"Spock's dead?!"

I couldn't believe what Uhura was telling us.

"How did it happen?" asked Janice, her eyes brimming with tears.

"The details are classified," said Uhura, "but he died saving everyone on board the Enterprise from Khan Noonien Singh."

"Khan? The man behind the brainwashing device I used to reprogram my personality? Didn't he die three centuries ago?"

"No," said Uhura, sounding and looking tired. "We encountered him on a mission years ago and thought we'd seen the back of him. We were wrong then, but he's not coming back this time. Unfortunately, he managed to do enough damage to the Enterprise that Starfleet Command has decided to decommission her. She's over thirty years old now and they don't believe it's worth what it would take to refurbish her. So this is the end of the line for her. She'll never fly again."

"And Spock is dead," I said, still trying to get my mind around that one.

"Spock is dead," she agreed. "The only good thing to come out of this whole sorry mess is that Admiral Kirk got to meet his son, David."

"James Kirk has a son?" I said, astonished. "He kept that quiet."

"He did indeed. Look, the reason I asked you to come to my quarters tonight is that this is the last chance we're likely to get to be together for what could be a very long time, so I couldn't let it pass."

"Where are you going?" asked Janice.

"I'm not at liberty to say, but I think you'll hear about it soon enough. And now I'm afraid you have to be going. It was great seeing you both again, and I really hope things work out so we'll be able to do this again one day."

She hugged us both tightly, then we headed out. I don't think I've ever seen Uhura look so sad.

"What do you think *that* was all about?" I asked Janice as we boarded the transit shuttle that would carry us home to Oakland.

"No idea," she said, "but Nyota seems to think we'll find out soon enough."

We did.

Three days later she, Jim Kirk and the others stole the Enterprise, and Starfleet declared them wanted fugitives.

""""""

2286: Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

"Spock's alive?!"

"So they're claiming," said Janice, as she opened up the food containers on the blanket we'd laid out for our picnic in the park, "and now Nyota, Jim Kirk, and the others have apparently agreed to return to Earth from Vulcan to face the music."

"What do you think will happen to them?"

"Let's see, they're going to be charged with sabotage, assaulting Starfleet personnel, disobeying the orders of a superior officer, and the theft and destruction of a starship. Honestly? I think Starfleet is going to throw the book at them."

"They've got a lot of distinguished service under their belts," I pointed out.

"I'm sure that'll be taken into consideration, but the charges are grave enough that I'm not sure how much difference it'll make. No, they've really dropped themselves in it this time. Ah, here comes Grace and her girlfriend now."

I looked at the attractive young girls holding hands as they walked across the meadow to meet us and smiled. Grace had always been happily gay, but Tricia was the first of her girlfriends our daughter had wanted us to meet. She was obviously more serious about this one than she had been about the others. We got to our feet to greet them, and Grace did the introductions.

"Moms, this is Trish," she said, as we shook hands with the nervous teenager, "and Trish...I'm Grace, this is my mother Janice, and this is my other mother Janice."

She laughed uproariously at this, while Trish looked puzzled and slightly alarmed.

"Don't worry about it," I told the girl, trying to suppress a smile, "our daughter has been a fan of old twentieth century sitcoms since she was a small child. That's a line she adapted from one of those that still survives."

""""""

2286: Oakland

"Whales?" I said.

"Hump-backed whales," said Uhura. "We brought a pair of those extinct creatures to the present from the twentieth century. They were the ones who were able to communicate with that alien probe and get it to return to wherever it came from."

"So you saved the world. Again."

"I guess we did," she agreed.

On returning to Earth, Uhura and the others had been confined to quarters until their court martial. This was the first time we'd seen her since that night five months ago when she had said goodbye to us not knowing if she'd ever see us again.

"It got pretty hairy here," said Janice, "the signals from the probe killed all planetary power, and started vaporizing the oceans and ionizing the atmosphere. I don't think we'd have survived if you hadn't found those whales."

"Yet they still court-martialled you all, Aunt Nyota," said Grace, who was sitting with us around the table in our Oakland apartment, enviously eyeing the Saurian brandy we'd insisted she was too young to share but which the rest of us were working our way through enthusiastically.

"They had to, sweetie. Regardless of our subsequent actions, the charges against us were real and they needed to be dealt with. Of course, as mitigating circumstances go, saving the world is pretty hard to beat."

"But the only one of you who was punished was Admiral Kirk, who got demoted to Captain. That doesn't seem fair."

Grace had always hero-worshipped Jim Kirk and would stand up for him against all-comers.

"It was a demotion, but it wasn't a punishment. Starfleet Command merely acknowledged what we've all always known. James Kirk *belongs* in charge of a starship. He should never have accepted that damn promotion in the first place."

"Have you guys been assigned a new ship yet?"

"Yes, we're joining her later today, though no one will tell us anything about her. We'd better not be getting a garbage scow."

"I want to hear more about the whales," said Grant, who had wandered in from the next room where he'd been playing a game with friends in Tokyo.

"Their names are George and Gracie..." began Uhura.

"Hah! Gracie!" he said.

"Don't even think it, squirt," said his sister, glaring at him menacingly.