I do not own Star Trek or anything to do with said franchise. However, I own Alianna Lordeck and co-own Sindari Lordeck and this plot. This fic is based on the new movie, and thus, takes place in the alternate universe of the movie. It's rated for lots of bad language and some sexual scenes (let's face it, it is Captain Kirk we're talking about), and violence and some drinking. You know, standard stuff. Should be lots of fun and I apologize in advance if any of the information about Star Trek is wrong. I've tried to do research, but hey, with eleven movies, five live-action shows and one animated show, along with multiple books and such, getting all the facts straight is kind of hard. Anyways, enjoy.

Ain't No Rest for the Wicked
Chapter Three: The U.S.S. Marissa.

Alianna felt as if the wind had been knocked from her lungs.

No life signs.

She knees gave out and she fell backwards, stumbling until she landed hard in the command chair, gasping for breath, trying to get enough air to fight the white points of light dancing across her vision. The empty Marissa hung in front of the main viewer, looking like something from a nightmare and Alianna kept her green eyes, blinking furiously at the burning sensation spreading behind them, pinned to the floor so the sight wouldn't push her emotions out of their so carefully sealed place. As Sindari lost her footing and feel to her knees beside the chair, Alianna gasped, but the motion was lost as Spock and the young navigator both moved to her sister's aid. Kirk remained standing in front of the older sister, concern on his face. He moved forward, hand extended as if to place it on her shoulder, but at the last minute he dropped his arm to his side, reacting to the acidic look taking over the young officer's face. It had nothing to do with him, but with the brace still firmly on his nose, Kirk didn't feel it was safe to take changes with the fiery woman, especially not in the current situation.

No life signs.

Alianna pushed herself to her feet suddenly, causing Kirk and those bridge officers who had been brave enough to venture closer to the sisters to take a step or two back from the centre chair. She looked at Kirk, unreadable emotions passing between the two of them, then, with her face set in determination, she turned smartly on her bare heel and crossed the bridge, knowing full well that Captain Kirk knew exactly what she was going to do. However, it was only as the doors of the turbolift slid closed in front of her face did Kirk start issuing orders and the formerly stoic bridge leapt into life.

I can't leave them without saying goodbye, she told herself as the lift rapidly descended. I won't. I can't. She bit her lip to muffle a sob. She wouldn't cry. Not here. I have to see them for myself… They're my friends. My family… I won't leave them. Alianna inhaled sharply and looked up at the bright lights as she tried to keep the tears from falling. The Captain might have predicted her actions and ignored regulation to a point to let her go ahead, but she didn't think he understood how much of a favour he'd actually done her. Under normal circumstances, she would not have been allowed on the away team because of her professional, personal and emotional connections to the situation, but she needed to get on board the Marissa. Only Sindari could understand that need, but she thought Kirk might have grasped some of her urgency. In whatever case, she made a mental note amidst her suffocation of emotions to thank him later.

As the lift doors hissed open, Alianna hit the floor at a jog and made her way to the transporter room. Ignoring the looks from the transporter operators, she flicked her dark hair over her shoulders and fastened a belt equipped with a phaser and communicator. Properly armed and phaser set to stun just in case, she climbed the few stairs and settled her bare feet on the faintly glowing pad. The look she fixed the operator with would have wilted stronger men.

"Put me on the bridge," she ordered.

"I don't have the—"

"Put me on the bridge, now."

"Miss, I need the Captain—"

"Put me on the God damn bridge right fucking now."

As the familiar tingling sensation associated with beaming spread through her body, the doors hissed open and Kirk, Sindari, Spock, Bones, and the navigator—was his name Chekov?—entered the transporter room, all but Kirk and the Vulcan looking confused or alarmed. They arrived just as Alianna's form disappeared in a tornado of light.

She reappeared a second later, a sob escaping her control as her feet hit the familiar carpet of the Marissa's bridge. With the inhalation of air came the cloying smell of death. It clogged her nose and coated her throat and the inside of her mouth. She pressed the back of her left hand against her nose, but she was determined to remain a soldier at least until they had officially cleared the bridge, so Alianna drew her phaser and kept it pointed in front of her. It only took a second to discern there was nothing alive on the bridge. As that thought passed, and she realized she could breathe through her mouth and not feel like she was going to throw up, the full impact of what she was seeing hit Alianna. All around her were the bodies of her crewmates—her family—still sitting in their seats, hands still on their consoles. Alianna's chest constricted with all the bottled emotions and her eyes began to burn with unshed tears as she took in their faces, and remembered: the Andorian navigator she'd only ever called Gar, who had beaten Alianna in many a drinking contest and who'd unfailingly been her supply of her favoured Andorian ale since they'd met; Eleanor, the Captain's wife and a seasoned pilot who could outmanoeuvre anyone else in Starfleet and who'd spent countless hours teaching Alianna how to be a better pilot and who'd been heartbroken with her choice to become a security officer; Tarik, the Vulcan security officer directly under Alianna and who she regretted not getting to know better; the science officer, Philip who liked to read and liked to be alone…

She was so lost in the memories that she didn't hear the arrival of the rest of the away team. As they gagged on the smell of putrefaction, Alianna reined in her emotions, but didn't turn to look at them.

Alianna's eyes and the majority of her attention was riveted on the command chair, where Captain Joseph DeFalco sat, slumped over to one side, mouth hanging open and grey eyes staring blankly out the viewer into space. A moment of complete stillness passed as the others took in what was before them and Alianna tried to process the death of the man who'd been closer to her than her own father. As the moment vanished, she closed the distance between her position and the chair and stood in front of him, like she was reporting for duty on the bridge. His body showed no outward signs of decomposition except for a lack of colour and shallowness to his cheeks and muscles chest that had not been there in life. Had the smell of beginning putrefaction not been filling the air, Alianna would have checked for a pulse. As it was, she stepped right up to the chair and took the corpse's hand in hers, ignoring the remaining effects of rigor mortis, and easily slid the ring bearing the symbol of the Starfleet Academy that he had obtained upon graduation from his hand. Alianna clenched her treasure tightly before kneeling down to stare DeFalco in the eyes.

"Goodbye, Joe…" she whispered in a voice so low only she could hear her words. Her voice caught in another sob. "I'll miss you." She hung her head, her long hair falling about her face like a curtain, concealing it from the others on the bridge and allowing a few tears to fall from her eyes. Swallowing another sob and the instinctual disgust at what she was about to do, she pressed her lips briefly to the man's forehead before sliding his lids closed over formally warm and inviting eyes. "I'm sorry," she breathed. Pocketing the ring, Alianna rose to her feet, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her mouth, trying to gather herself together before she faced the others.

"Ali…" Sindari's hand appeared in her sister's and squeezed gently.

The older woman returned the gesture before dropping the contact and turning to face the other members of the hastily thrown together away team. Kirk, ignoring regulation himself and coming on the away mission instead of his first officer, was standing behind the sisters, his phaser hanging at his side and his attention completely on the women in front of him. Obviously he had left Spock in command of the Enterprise. There was a look of concern mixed with confusion on his face, as if he didn't know whether to be more worried about what had happened on the Marissa or about Alianna and her sister. Behind him, Bones was busy scanning the body of Gar, his eyes glued to the tricorder in his hand, and Chekov was standing in front of the navigation console, accessing the ship's various systems and proving his adeptness at reading screens upside down. One by one, the systems that had previous been offline whirred back to life as the Russian's fingers moved deftly across the touchscreen. As light fell on the bridge, the scene only became more horrifying, but Alianna didn't allow herself to see it anymore. She kept her eyes on the Captain.

"Life support was the only system left online, Keptin," Chekov said as his eyes zipped back and forth across the screen. "Ewerything else was shut down almost sewenty-two hours ago."

"As far as I can estimate, that was the time of death. For everyone on the bridge at least."

Kirk nodded. "Get as much information as you can. I'll include it all in the report." He lifted the communicator from his belt and flipped it open at the same time he returned the phaser to its holster with his other hand. "Enterprise, this is Kirk. Find and contact the nearest space station. Alert them to our arrival and inform them of the situation. Then alert Starfleet so the necessary arrangements can be made."

"Yes Captain."

He returned the device to his belt and once again turned his attention to the Lordeck sisters. "Have you seen everything you need to?" he asked. His voice was quiet and Alianna found more deeply grateful to him than she had been to anyone in a long time. She knew Sindari felt the same.

"With your permission, I would like to head to my quarters and collect my things, sir, as everything I had with me on the shuttle was lost," Alianna said, more than surprised at how calm her voice was.

Kirk deliberated for a moment. "Chekov, you are positive there were no life signs on board?" With the young Russian's confirmation, he nodded his consent to Alianna. "Be careful. We don't know what they—whoever they are—could have left lying around the ship." His blue eyes roamed about the bridge for a moment. "It doesn't look as if whoever did this hung around long, however since life support was left online, it's safe to assume they did beam aboard." Kirk looked at Sindari for a moment, bringing her into the conversation, but then returned his gaze to Alianna. "You two have twenty minutes to gather everything you need. I'm coming with you," he added, almost as an afterthought.

The three of them crossed the bridge to the turbolift where Alianna pushed herself as far into the back of the circular car as she could, titling her head to hide her face with her hair again. The silence that filled the lift was tense and slightly awkward, and no one took steps to break it. Alianna wrapped her arms around herself and tried to stem the shivers that seemed to have come on so suddenly. Sindari came to her side and, in spite of her own pain, she hugged Alianna tightly as she cried softly into her older sister's shoulder. Feeling as if he was intruding on a very personal moment, Kirk kept his eyes forward. After the turbolift had descended to the deck where the girls' quarters were located, Alianna broke away from her sister and stepped off the lift first, leading the way through the hallways which were, mercifully, relatively stink-free. At the appropriate intersection of the Excelsior-class ship, Sindari headed left while Alianna went to the right, feeling odd and empty as she stepped through the doors and stood facing what was now her past. Alianna was aware of Kirk following her, but didn't pay him much mind. He probably felt she was the more volatile one and wanted to make sure there were no more flares in her temper; judging by the tightness in her chest, he was probably in the right frame of mind. When he entered her room, he stood just inside the range of the doors' sensors and watched her. For a long time, Alianna stood still as well, low and strangled sobs the only indication that she was still conscious.

"I'm sorry," Kirk said quietly. "You can cry if you want. I promise I won't tell anyone you're human."

Alianna sobbed once, and in spite of everything she was feeling and that had happened, she laughed. Then, for the first time in a long time, she cried tears of sorrow and she trusted someone other than her sister with her emotions.

When her tears had subsided enough for her to traverse the room without killing herself, Alianna grabbed her large duffle bag from the closet. She dropped it on the bed and started throwing crumbled balls of civilian clothing into the bottom of the empty bag. On top of the clothes she barely wore she started placing her much cared for models of various starships she'd collected her whole life. She stopped as her fingers found the model of the Marissa.

"Can I ask why you seem so attached to this ship?"

Alianna looked at Kirk, her eyes rimmed in red and her cheeks shimmering with the remnants of her tears. "You could ask, but we don't have the time for me to explain everything. Not here anyway." When he raised a questioning eyebrow, she said, "You only gave us twenty minutes, sir. Most of that time is gone." The whole time she spoke, her voice was quiet and controlled. Not like her at all.

She returned to her packing, her eyes lingering only a second longer on the Marissa model. Alianna folded her Starfleet uniforms—the dresses, the shirts and pants and the dress uniforms—neatly on top of the ship models and then stuffed the side pouches of the duffel bag with everything else she wished to retain: her hairbrush and other hygiene items, her jewellery, makeup and many pairs of hair sticks went in one pocket while her many data PADDs containing her well-read novels, security, tactical and piloting manuals and personal logs went in the other. In a pocket on the front of the bag, she carefully tucked three framed photographs. One was of her and Sindari when they were children, one was of the group of pilots DeFalco had trained at Starfleet, and the last was of Alianna and Joseph. She slung the bag over her shoulder, adjusted it and then, after a final sweep of the room and a moment of deliberation, she scooped the blue, black and purple quilt from her bed and wrapped it around her arms.

"Ready?"

Alianna nodded at Kirk, her mouth open and a fresh round of tears bubbling over. She turned and looked around the room that used to be hers once more and then faced the Captain again, failing to control her emotions and wanting nothing more right then to do just that. I don't want to leave, she realized with a pang. I don't want to leave this ship… They can't be dead. She sobbed loudly, more tears falling. They can't be dead. This is all a dream… "It's a dream…" she breathed. "A dream… He can't be dead…" All remaining traces of calm vanished in that moment. She dropped the blanket and the bag, her hand fumbling for her phaser. "He can't be dead! This is a dream! A DREAM!" Her room swam before her as more tears poured from her eyes and her fingers continued to grope for the metal weapon.

"Alianna!" Kirk ran forward and grabbed her wrists and pulled her around to face him. She resisted, pulling backwards with all the strength she could muster and throwing her weight from side to side, her dark hair sticking to her wet cheeks and lips. "Alianna!" he yelled. Her struggling weakened and her body began to shake. Kirk pulled her closer, putting his face close to hers. "Alianna," he said, finally drawing her attention. Her green eyes, swollen and rimmed with red, were wide and full of fear, sadness and something that looked like guilt. There was a split in her bottom lip where she'd bitten down too hard in her attempt to keep her emotions private. A trickle of blood ran down her chin. If Kirk didn't know better, he would have thought that this woman was a completely separate person from the Alianna who had, only hours ago, broken his nose. "Let's go back to the Enterprise," he whispered. "You need rest." She nodded and stopped struggling all together, her hands hanging limp as Kirk still held her bandaged wrists. Realizing he must be hurting her, he dropped her arms and walked over to where she'd dropped her bag. He took the burden on his own strong shoulders before handing her the quilt.

As they re-entered the hall, Alianna seemed to return to her normal self. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and looked apologetically up at the young Captain. "I'm… sorry for that. Thank you."

Kirk only nodded.

An hour or so later, the Marissa was being towed safely behind the Enterprise and the proper authorities alerted to the situation at hand. Bones was busy in sickbay going over his data and trying to figure out some lead as to what happened on the Excelsior-class ship. Sindari was asleep in her quarters, her own rather excessive wardrobe in place in her closet, the pictures of her parents, sister and friends from the Academy and Andoria displayed proudly on her shelves beside a copious collection of music and books. A toy phaser sat on the table by her bed as well as a bright green stuffed turtle named Turtle. As Alianna had helped her unpack upon their return from the Marissa, she'd marvelled at the amount of stuff Sindari had. Alianna hadn't bothered to unpack her things. The bag sat on her bed, open but still containing everything except the clothes she'd changed into after a longer-than-necessary sonic shower. Now, Alianna was sitting on the couch in Kirk's sitting room, preparing herself to tell the Captain why the loss of the Marissa had hit her so hard. Her hair had been returned to its usual smooth bun at the back of her head, complete with silver hair sticks and she was wearing her favoured black pants and white shirt, but she had added a blue sweater and the quilt was wrapped around her shoulders in an attempt to ward off the cold that had settled in her marrow. Her feet were once again bare, but this time it was because she had curled into a ball in the corner of the couch and she hadn't thought the soles of her Starfleet boots would be welcome on the white cushions; the boots lay forgotten on the floor.

"Here," Kirk said, returning from his bedroom with two glasses in his hands. Alianna's eyes widened slightly when she saw the bright blue liquor sloshing in the bottom on the square-bottom glasses and the bottle tucked under Kirk's arm. "Since you grew up on Andoria," he offered simply as he handed her one of the glasses.

"Thanks," she mumbled. Alianna took a long drink from the glass, draining half of it in one go.

"And she's no slouch."

The barest hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, the only bit of her normal fire present. "I learned from the best… Gar, that Andorian on the… the ship. He was a good friend." She drained the rest of the drink in another long gulp, savouring the brief surge of warmth that followed. It was a sensation gone by the time she placed the empty glass on the table. "They were all good friends… They were… my family."

Kirk nodded. "But there's something else, isn't there?"

Alianna raised an eyebrow in a very Vulcan-like way as Kirk tipped the bottle and refilled her glass. "And what makes you think that?" she snapped.

"Sindari served with the same crew on the same ship almost as long as you did. And yet, she can sleep. She's not attempting to kill herself. And while I'm sure she's not as emotional as you on the best of days, it's not as if she hasn't cried over their deaths. What is it that cut you so deeply?"

How do I start explaining? She drew the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth as she searched for a beginning. "Joseph DeFalco was a friend of my parents," she said. "He and my father had known each other since they were little, and he used to come and visit us all the time. He'd bring me models of starships and tell me about his adventures." A small smile danced across her lips as her mind wandered away from the horror being towed along behind them. Alianna turned and looked out the window, at the stars. Her eyes started to burn, but she found herself once again capable of swallowing the lump in her throat and continuing her story, even if her voice was a little hoarse. "Thanks to his influence, I wanted to enlist in Starfleet from the time I was six. But my parents wouldn't hear of it. They wanted Sindari and me to become politicians. I was supposed to take over the position of ambassador and Sindari was supposed to enter into the Andorian government or something." She sighed shakily and brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "I didn't want any of that so I concentrated on learning about Starfleet and the Federation and starships and everything I thought I might need to know to get into the Academy. Joe started bringing me books about Starfleet and telling me about his time at the Academy and instructing me in the basics. My parents got very angry with him very quickly. They said he was 'infesting my mind with ideas improper for a young girl'." Alianna turned and looked at Kirk. "They severed all contact with him. Said he wasn't welcome anymore. He took it like the good-hearted man he was and stayed out of what he considered family business."

"Did you want more to drink?"

She nodded absently, her eyes turning back out the window; she didn't remember having emptied her glass, but she had. The ship whirred around her in the silence, the only other noise the sound of liquid hitting glass. Alianna wasn't completely sure why she was telling Kirk everything about her connection to the Marissa, other than she felt she owed him something for all he'd done for her and Sindari in the past twenty-four hours and she trusted him. She knew of Kirk and his missions and she trusted him. There was also the slim chance something in her story might help find who had murdered all of the crew.

Kirk placed the refilled drink in her hands. She nursed her third glass of the ale slower, not needing the headache she knew she'd get if she drank another glass too quickly. The Captain resumed his former position of lounging low in the cushions at the other end of the couch with his feet stretched out across the table, and for several long minutes, the two of them sat and sipped their Andoria ale in silence, both surprised at the comfort they found in the situation. Eventually, Alianna turned her green eyes back to the Captain and, with a subtle shift in posture, indicated she was ready to start speaking again.

"As you can probably guess from what I've already said, I was miserable towards my parents and ignored every lesson or instruction pertaining to politics. When I was sixteen, the Marissa entered Andoria's orbit and I seized the only chance I could see to get the future I wanted."

"Let me guess—you contacted Captain DeFalco and got him to beam you aboard."

Another glint of her normal fire broke through the melancholy. "Nothing quite that smooth. I snuck into the cargo hold of a supply vessel bound for the Marissa and hid in a crate full of mechanical parts of some kind. When the crate had stopped moving, I waited for as long as I could and then I climbed out." One corner of her mouth lifted in a grin she wasn't aware of. "I was immediately detected of course and brought to the bridge. When Joe saw it was me, he was furious at first and intent on taking me back to my parents. They wouldn't take his calls though and I refused to leave, so he contented himself with continuing to try and contact my parents while listening to my grandiose explanations of what had happened and why he had to let me stay on the Marissa—"

The notes announcing someone's presence at the door sounded, breaking the bubble which seemed to have formed in the room, around the two Starfleet officers.

"Enter," Kirk said, pulling himself off the couch.

The doors hissed open, admitting Commander Spock and Lieutenant Commander McCoy. Alianna shifted into a more upright position and nodded in greeting as she pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders; the look on Bones' face didn't bode well.

"Jim," Bones said after acknowledging his fast friend's presence, his tone invoking immediately the importance of what the doctor was about to say. "You wanted a report as soon as I'd finished going over my collected data from the Marissa…" He paused and inhaled a deep breath, once again looking at Alianna, knowing without a doubt that she wanted to hear this information as much as or more so the Captain. "As far as I could tell, everyone on board died at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way. The problem is I can't tell what that way is. None of the crew members I scanned bore any outward or inward signs of trauma and there are no indications of… well, anything. It seems they just… died."

"I'm afraid the same report applies to the external and internal scans of the ship," Spock informed Kirk, who was now standing in front of the table. He too, acknowledged Alianna's presence, but he spoke only to the Captain. "There are no traces of any known weapons nor are there any traces of any known races on the bridge. Indeed, there are no traces of anyone beyond the crew. I took the liberty of personally inspecting and interpreting Mister Chekov's scans of the ship's systems as well as the information he downloaded from the computers." There was only the briefest of pauses as Spock allowed the information he had just divulged to settle it. "I have a crew scanning the rest of the ship, looking for anything that will be of use to us. As it stands, Jim, we have no idea what happened to the crew of the Marissa, nor do we know who is behind it or why they murdered the inhabitants of the ship, all nine hundred and forty-two of them, including civilians."

Alianna sunk back into her former position on the couch with her face pointed out at the stars, even though she wasn't seeing any of them. She heard Kirk say something to Bones and Spock, but she was no longer paying attention to their exchange. She had heard everything she needed to. The tightness in her chest was back and this time it was accompanied by anger she wasn't keen on keeping inside. She wanted to know who was to blame for the murder of her family and she had been hoping to have that information immediately. Even though she knew it had been a ridiculous notion, she had hoped to get something, anything, which would make her feel better. Apparently she was not so lucky. She drained her third glass of Andorian ale and huddled deeper within her quilt, unaware of Kirk returning to his seat a few feet away from her.

"Did Captain DeFalco let you stay on the ship?"

She jumped, startled. "You want me to finish my story?"

"I don't see any reason why you shouldn't."

For a moment, Alianna considered yelling at the Captain. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth opened a fraction, but as the beginning of her tirade vibrated in her throat, she shut her mouth tightly and looked out the window again. There was something in Kirk's face that took the fire out of her at that time. "I'll continue if you wish, sir." Her voice became mechanic. "Joe let me stay on the Marissa while he vainly tried to contact my parents. Eventually, he gave up and I lived on the ship, exploring and learning as much as I could. After a while, Sindari managed to contact the ship and she begged me to come home, but I said no." She sighed. "The Marissa didn't come within transporter range of Earth until I was twenty-two, but as I had already completed my aptitude and admission tests, they let me into Starfleet right away."

"I don't remember you from the Academy."

Feeling a little less angry, Alianna managed a smile. "Well, I remember you."

The first thing Sindari did when she awoke was hit her head on the wall.

Rubbing her cranium, she sat up in bed and brought the lights up, illuminating the room with dim bluish light. Damn it, she cursed, blinking. That hurt. She rose to her feet and looked at the clock. She'd been asleep for seven hours. This meant, if they were on Earth or anywhere with a similar night-day cycle, it would be around mid-morning. The twenty-four year old officer yawned and stretched upwards, groaning as something in her back popped audibly. After a quick shower, she changed into the black Starfleet dress, feeling it wouldn't be appropriate to wear her actual uniform yet as she had not been transferred to anyone else's command and was still technically on shore leave, and headed into the strangely quiet hall. Judging by the hour, most of the crew were either in their quarters, the mess hall or at their duty stations; something in her pined for her console, for her duty schedule. She sighed as she realized it would probably be a while until she was returned to any normalcy. Even though she knew it had happened, the journey to the Marissa the night before seemed nothing more than a dream. The bodies of her crewmates seemed nothing more than spectres. She couldn't go back there. She had to move forward.

Sindari wandered the halls with her hands clasped behind her back, keeping her eyes on the floor and paying no attention to where she was going. Only when the hissing doors of a turbolift sounded in front of her, did she look up. The doctor, who everyone seemed to call Bones, was standing directly in front of her. Knowing her sister had become fast friends, she ventured a question. "Lieutenant Commander McCoy, have you seen my sister?"

"Not since last night, Sindari. And call me Bones. Have you asked the computer to locate her?"

Feeling infinitely stupid, Sindari shook her head. "It's not important that I find her right away. I just wanted to see how she was doing. Captain DeFalco was more her father than our actual father." She smiled and tucked some of her reddish hair behind her ear. "You've seen her temper. You can imagine why I'm worried." As the doctor nodded, another thought dawned on Sindari. "Have there been any conclusions reached about the attack?" she asked without much hope.

"Other than we have no idea what happened, no."

Sindari sighed. "What's next?"

"We keep scanning the ship and the bodies to see if we can come up with any leads. We're taking the Marissa to a science-based station, so if we don't come up with anything, they might."

"How long until we reach the station?"

"Three days."

"And I assume we're keeping an eye out for any signs of suspicious or hostile activity just in case the criminals are in the area?"

"Of course. Although, if you want the details on that particular operation, you're better off asking Spock. He's on the bridge."

"Thank you… Bones."

The doctor nodded before continuing his trek. Sindari stepped into the still-open turbolift and pressed the button for the bridge. As she was rising rapidly, a thought occurred. What if she wasn't allowed on the bridge? Sure, she had been before, when it had seemed appropriate. But now that they'd found the Marissa, why would they let someone not part of the crew on the bridge? Deciding it was worth taking a chance, and that the worst thing the Captain could say was no, Sindari exited the turbolift. She paused to check that her reflection was suitable and then strode confidently onto the bridge, stopping in front of the command chair, where she could look the Captain in the eye.

"I was wondering if I might be of any help, sir."

"Why don't you take a seat next to Chekov, Miss Lordeck, and continue to familiarize yourself with our weapons systems."

"Aye, Captain."

As Sindari took up the seat she'd occupied the day before, the officer standing behind Kirk and to the right caught her eye. It wasn't the young man who'd been on the bridge the day before. It was Alianna. She was wearing the pants and red shirt of her Starfleet uniform and standing behind what was unmistakably the security console. There was a faraway look to her face—one that Sindari was quite familiar with—and she hadn't acknowledged her sister yet, nor did it look like she would. For a moment, Sindari could have sworn they were back on the Marissa. Alianna looked just as at home in her current position as she had on the larger ship.

"Miss Lordeck? Would you like to see the weapons interface again?" Chekov asked from beside her.

"What? Oh, yes. Please."

Author's Note… Just for the record, it has been decided that this takes place about a year and a half after the movie. So Kirk is twenty-six and Chekov is eighteen. And since those are the only characters we ever find out the ages of in the movie, you'll have to make up ages for the rest of them.

I have now seen Star Trek five times in theatres. In case you were wondering, I'm going for six, which is as many times as I saw The Dark Knight, which is my other favourite movie. For me, Star Trek was as good as The Dark Knight, so to physically demonstrate the awesomeness of both movies, I am going to see them an equal number of times in theatres. This is only a physical representation because I keep all my movie tickets in a little book. Yes, I am just that weird.

The amount of stuff that Sindari and Alianna have is opposite of reality. I actually have like twice as much crap as Shauna. (laughs)

Next Chapter: What The Hell Happened?