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 Fifteen: And So It Begins.

"Bridge to the Captain."

Jim Kirk jumped a little as the page woke him. He groaned slightly and shifted a bit, stretching out the kinks from sleeping and allowing himself a moment to remember where he was; waking up under a strange ceiling and in a strange bed always disoriented him a little, no matter how often it happened. "Kirk here," he finally said. He settled back against the pillows, savouring the cocoon of warmth the blankets had turned into. It was nearly impossible to be worried in that moment.

"Captain," Spock's calm voice said as it slid out of the intercom speaker next to the door. The serious tone to the trusted Vulcan's voice did more to wake the Captain up than anything else could have. "The ion trail is becoming increasingly stronger. I estimate the Klingons to be no more than five point six hours ahead of us. We should prepare."

"Very good Mister Spock," Kirk said around a sigh. "I'm on my way to the bridge."

Kirk waited until he heard the soft click that meant the intercom was no longer connected before rolling over to look at the chronometer on the bed side table. After determining he'd had about three hours of sleep, the young Captain rolled back over and gazed at Alianna, who appeared still asleep on the bed beside him. Despite the Enterprise heading into battle, James Kirk couldn't help but enjoy the moment. Alianna was sprawled over her half of the bed, the dark gray blankets twisted around her curvaceous form and her long hair fanned out and tangled around her; her chest rose and fell steadily with sleep and every time she exhaled, she mumbled incoherently. Smiling slightly to himself, Kirk reached over and ran the tip of one finger down her cheek, neck, along her shoulder and across her back. She shivered and rolled over before opening her green eyes to glare playfully at him.

In that second, a thought hit the Captain. Since Spock had paged Kirk, that meant he had used the computer to locate the Captain, and that meant that Spock knew Kirk was in Alianna's room. The thought brought a groan from his mouth.

"Oh, that's a nice way to greet me," Alianna said with a small smile as she untangled herself from Kirk's arms, pushing against his bare chest as she did so.

Before she could fully disengage herself however, Kirk grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back down, holding her against him. "I wasn't groaning at you, Ali." He held her for a brief moment, her back against his chest, his chin on her shoulder; the levity of their waking moments was all but gone, but that didn't mean Kirk wasn't going to use up every moment of comfort he could. "We've got to get to the bridge," he said, leaning into her a bit.

She shifted on the bed so she could look at the man who was now, she supposed, her lover. "I heard Commander Spock," she said quietly. Alianna kissed Kirk gently and then pulled herself free of the man's arms. He let her go this time. "We'd better hurry, Jim."

He gazed at her, standing naked beside the bed, and then nodded.

Alianna crossed her room and pulled a fresh uniform—a red dress and black leggings—out of her closet and Kirk gathered his clothes from the floor. By the time Alianna had dressed, brushed out and secured her very tangled hair back into its normal bun, slid her silver hair sticks into place, and fastened her phaser belt around her hips, the young Captain had gone to and retuned from his own quarters, dressed once again in his regulation Federation uniform and looking every bit the well-known Captain he was. That is, of course, except for the piece of white tape across his nose.

"Is that uniform regulation?" Kirk asked when Alianna turned around.

She pulled her boots on and then headed towards the door, deliberately moving ahead of the Captain. "Actually, it is," she answered with the barest hint of a smirk.

Without having to ask, Kirk knew that all the anger Alianna had developed towards the Klingons was rising back to the surface and she would be the fiery young officer he'd met on the Orion slave trading vessel as soon as they stepped onto the bridge, ready—and probably looking—for a fight. As the pair stepped into the circular turbolift, Kirk took advantage of the privacy to place his hand lightly at the small of Alianna's back, using a small increase of pressure to draw her towards him. Under the pale fluorescent lighting, and with some determination, Alianna managed to show Kirk that she was scared and angry and worried about the conflict they were heading into and all Kirk could do in the face of her emotion was agree.

On the bridge, Alianna slipped behind her console, relieving the ensign on duty, and immediately set to work checking the entire ship for any security issues and ignoring everyone else on the bridge. Her primary job done, she turned her unnaturally green eyes towards the vista of streaming stars, her fingers standing ready beside the screen of her console, ready to move into action at any moment. The bridge crew were fairly silent as the ship hurtled through space, the beeps of the consoles the loudest noises in the circular room. A few moments after Alianna had arrived at her console, Sindari and Bones stepped onto the bridge. There was a piece of white tape above Sindari's right eye, and she was looking rather red-faced, although Alianna couldn't tell if she was angry or flustered. Bones approached the command chair and began speaking to Kirk in hushed tones, but not so hushed that Alianna couldn't hear.

"Captain, with the fluctuations in power, we lost three of the injured crew members from the Intrepid and one of our own: Engineer McNeal." The Doctor paused, and then said, "The rest are being treated and all should make a full recovery."

"What about the boy—Sage?—that Commander Lordeck helped rescue?" Kirk asked.

Alianna's head snapped up then; she'd been only half paying attention before. She was very interested in the well-being of Sage, and aside from having saved him, she wasn't sure why, but some sort of attachment had formed. She would be very, very angry if the boy didn't recover. The Captain looked over at her sudden movement, as did Bones, but neither of them said anything right away.

"Sage will be fine," Bones answered. "He's been asking for you actually, Alianna."

The security officer blinked, a little taken back. While she had become attached, she hadn't expected the boy to remember her at all. "Oh," she said, her voice quiet. She blinked a few more times, trying to clear a sudden influx of tears, the warm emotions momentarily cutting through her anger. "I'll... go down and see him after we take care of these Klingons." By the end of her last sentence, her voice had returned to normal, and the anger could be heard loud and clear. Even Alianna was surprised at the speed of her mood swings.

Bones nodded. "I'll let him know." And then he turned and left the bridge, heading back down to sick bay. There was no reason for the chief medical officer to be on the bridge during a conflict. But Bones most likely would be needed during and afterwards. And he would be needed in sick bay.

"Captain," Spock said from the science station as the turbolift doors closed. "The ion trail is veering off course."

Kirk nodded and turned towards his helmsman. "Alter course to follow, Mister Sulu. Drop to impulse power if we enter that star system. If their cloaking device isn't working properly, they could be taking shelter in an orbit, and I don't want them picking up on our warp signature. If we can do the sneaking, we might be able to do this without bloodshed."

Alianna couldn't help but scoff. It was a loud noise in the relative silence of the bridge.

Kirk raised an eyebrow at his security officer. "Do you have something to say Commander Lordeck?" he asked.

"I just think it's unlikely we'll be able to resolve a conflict with the Klingons without bloodshed, sir." She kept her eyes locked on Kirk's steady gaze and let her anger show through; it was evident there was going to be no trouble separating their apparent personal and professional relationships. At least not at this moment.

"While that may be, we can't go in phasers blazing."

"I wasn't suggesting that, Captain. I was just stating my opinion."

Alianna turned her gaze back towards the viewer and then dropped her eyes to her console. She checked over the ship and her systems, some part of her that had been twisted with worry relaxing as she saw the ship was almost back to full power. The fight was going to happen, and she didn't want to be flying into it without their weapons or shields. Scotty had been working on a way to deliver more power to the shields, and it looked like he had succeeded at least somewhat.

The ion trail did veer towards a star system, coming very close to the outermost planet, but it did not venture farther into orbit, instead turning sharply and heading back into the empty regions of space. Alianna's only thought as it why had to do with the Klingon ship being unable to navigate properly. The Enterprise remained at warp as it followed the new course, but the trail intensity did not change and the tension on the bridge rose the longer they flew. Alianna's tension in particular increased, her fingers drumming impatiently on her console and her jaw clenched tightly. Her impatience was echoed in the set of her sister's shoulders and the way she kept knocking her knee against the pillar of her console, and in the young Chekov who kept checking everything he possibly could with his console repeatedly. Several of the junior officers on the bridge were also anxious, but they tried very hard to be less obvious about it. Spock, typically, remained stoic, as did Uhura and Sulu. Kirk sat in his command chair, looking calm, but Alianna knew he was just as impatient as she was, but he was not inclined to show it.

As Alianna was stretching out a kink in her back, Uhura's voice broke through the tension and made her jump.

"Captain, there's an incoming message," she said, spinning around in her chair, her long ponytail whipping out behind her head. "It has a Federation signal and is coming from two separate locations."

"I'm picking up two ships on long range sensors, Keptin," Chekov interjected. He was the first one to pick up on the sensor readings because of his obsessive systems checking. "They are both Federation."

"On screen."

The main viewer flickered to display a split-screen image of two similar bridges and two very different looking Captains. On the left was a tall, thin man with a smooth face and dark grey eyes. There was a tight look to him, as if he was holding who he truly was back from his crew and the rest of Starfleet and trying to project the perfect Starfleet officer. On the other hand, the woman on the right displayed a friendly grin and shining brown eyes. She stood with her hands on her hips and oozed confidence. Alianna liked her, and by the grin on Sindari's face across the Enterprise's bridge, so did she.

"Captain Kirk," she said, "I'm Captain Reynolds of the starship Raven."

"And I am Captain Kennedy of the Destiny. We've been trying to catch up to you for quite some time. Starfleet has sent us to assist you in stopping the Klingons."

Kirk almost visibly sighed with relief, but managed to contain it. He smiled in a professional way. "Well we are glad to see you both."

"Captain, as you and your crew have the most knowledge of and experience dealing with the Klingons, we will defer to your judgement," Captain Reynolds said. There was a smile on her face that said she didn't care who was in charge; that she just wanted to kick some Klingon ass; Alianna wondered briefly if the older woman had a personal vendetta against the warlike race or if it was just the prejudice in the Federation.

Somewhere ahead of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her two knew companions, the Klingon ship limped through space. Her cloaking device still wasn't functioning properly, but the Klingons had kept it engaged to keep most of the ship hidden. One wing was still partially exposed and that, along with the still malfunctioning weapon, was what was causing the continuous arguments on the bridge and what had led to the three dead bodies now floating in space to the right of the damaged ship; the corpses were soon left behind as the ship continued to move forward.

The Klingons had managed to find three scientists who would, at gunpoint, look at the weapon. The Green-Eyed Man had been in charge of overseeing the scientists, and when they had said they couldn't figure out how to fix it, he had been prepared to let them go, with the threat of death if they told anyone about the weapon. This has not been good enough for the Klingons, and Krang had ordered them executed and dumped into space. That is what had happened.

"Someone will find those bodies!"

Krang lunged forward out of his command chair, the sudden movement driving the human man backwards into the weapons console. "I don't care! You said you would find a way to repair this weapon and you haven't! The Enterprise and two other Federation ships are after us and we cannot stand against three fully armed Starfleet vessels! You have condemned us all to dishonourable deaths!"

"I thought Klingons liked to die in battle!"

"With Starfleet as the opponent, it will not be an honourable death! They will capture and imprison us!"

Finding his second wind, the Green-Eyed Man stepped into Captain Krang's space, making him take a few steps backwards. "I don't care about you or your crew! The only reason I am working with you animals is to bring down the Federation!"

Krang's growl started low in his throat and moved down until it was rumbling in his chest and nearly echoing through the bridge. He raised both arms and seized the Green-Eyed Man around the upper arms, lifted him from the ground and tossed him against the command chair, the human making loud crunching noises as he connected and then toppled to the floor. "I should never have let you on this ship!" Krang howled as the human groaned. "Now you will fix that weapon or be thrown in the brig to be taken back to Qo'noS to be executed in front of the Klingon High Council!"

The Green-Eyed Man groaned louder and used the command chair to pull himself to his knees and then feet. He glared over his shoulder at the Captain and then limped across the bridge, adjusting his coat as he moved. Without any assistance and a lot of snarled insults and curses from the Klingon crew, the human made his way to Engineering, where the broken weapon conduits were located.

As he removed his jacket and painfully clambered into a twisted position to better access the conduits, the man sighed. He knew this would be fruitless—he was a diplomat and knew nothing about how a ship or its weapons worked, let alone how the prototype weapon worked. But he didn't want to be taken to the Klingon home world, that was for sure, and he wanted to stay alive. If he was going to have any success against the Federation, he would have to be alive. The Starfleet stooges would not shoot him first. They would try to talk him down, he would surrender, and then he would escape once he was taken back to Earth.

He was a diplomat. He knew how to move through the system.

It was Alianna who caught the wing on long range sensors a hour later.

"Captain!" she nearly shouted. "I've got the Klingon ship on sensors!"

Kirk was at her console in a second and she stepped out of the way, letting the gold-shirted Captain take over her console. The young Captain's face broke in a savage grin that was gone before Alianna could blink. He shot her a second, more normal grin, and then returned to his chair to start issuing orders. "Mister Sulu, bring us up behind the Klingons; Mister Chekov, ready phasers and target that wing. Lieutenant Uhura, relay orders to the Raven and the Destiny. I want them on our flanks, ready to fire if the Klingons return fire." The bridge jumped into motion. "Lieutenant Lordeck, shields up, and Commander Lordeck," he said, turning slightly to look at the older sister, "take the ship to red alert."

She smirked and keyed in the alert, the lights on the bridge turning red and flashing.

Author's Note.

DUN DUN DUN.

I don't know what that was for.

Okay, I do, but I can't tell you because that would ruin the surprise!

This chapter is a little shorter than the others, but I didn't want to combine the next chapter with this one because... well, I didn't.

Anyways, I like the beginning of this chapter. Enjoy!

Next Chapter: Call In The Cavalry.