Jim fumbled with the stylus trying to occupy his thoughts. It was too quiet. He must be out of his mind to be even considering it.
He looked again at the orders on the pad in front of him. He'd worked his ass off for the last 5 weeks trying to find every last one of the pirate net that had ripped apart his crew. Enterprise had managed to round up over a dozen small runners and leads to some of the higher levels of the Orion syndicate. It appeared that this was only the tip of the iceberg. The harder he looked the more he found. Like rats in a garbage heap, every time you turned over something another one would scurry out. But one ship couldn't do it all alone.
Now Starfleet was offering him an opportunity to accomplish what he had set out to do.
The letter began with some high praise of his abilities in the past 5 years, a glowing appraisal of his clean up efforts and an offer to make him the youngest Chief of Starfleet Operations in history.
Chief of Operations.
He would be able to finally do all the things he had ever wanted. He would be able to find and punish people like these Orion pirateers. He would never have to live with the knowledge that people like Kodos the Executioner roamed the cosmos. He could truly make a difference by bringing justice to the universe.
Nothing was keeping him on the Enterprise now that Bones and Spock were gone. Sulu had been accepted to Starfleet Intelligence Training. Checkov, Uhura and Scotty remained on Enterprise, but somehow it just wasn't the same. Hell, even Yeoman Rand had taken a job dirt side in base operations.
Why shouldn't he take the next logical step?
He mentally stumbled over that. Logical. There wasn't a damn thing that had happened in the last 3 months that was 'logical'.
He sighed. The promotion was already coming, he knew that. He'd been decorated so many times during his first mission there was really no question.
There was just one more step to take.
He read over the orders again. Chief of Operations for all of Starfleet.
Then he pressed his thumb on the 'Accept' frame and pushed Send on the message.
Admiral Kirk, Chief of Starfleet Operations.
He smiled. It had a nice ring to it.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Nyota Uhura heaved a heavy sigh as she waited for her comm channel to be confirmed. They were within range for a call to Earth and she was allocated 30 minutes.
The communications officer on duty signaled her and she leaned forward eagerly as Christine's image filled the screen.
"Chris! How are you doing Hon!"
Her friend beamed back at her, "Wonderful! What have you done with your hair? It really looks great."
Uhura lifted a hand to her head, very short naturally tight curls now covered her head. "Oh this? I'd like to say it was all my idea, but the truth is I was inspired by you."
"Me?" Christine ran her fingers through her own hair, now long enough to need some sort of care. She had decided not to change the color as she had on Enterprise. A new start deserved a new look. Her natural ash brown color seemed to suit her better anyhow.
"Yeah, something about getting older and wanting the natural look." She smiled and leaned back in her chair. "So tell me, how's school? How're you feeling?"
Christine smirked slightly, "Well if you're really interested in school I can go on for at least an hour about how young everyone is and how impossibly difficult the staff here can be. But you're more interested in how I'm doing aren't you?"
"Nah, you can tell me about the big mean doctors, but I won't believe you. I know George and he'd never allow them to push you around. And as for being surrounded by babies, don't even get me started! My relief is easily 10 years younger than I am!"
"I'd feel badly for you if I didn't know she was Kzinti." She responded dryly.
"Well you come sit on the bridge and live through being called 'Mom'!"
Christine clapped her hands in delight, laughing "Mama Ny! I love it! At least they say it to your face. After asking my bio molecular lab partner to turn off his personal palm pad I've been referred to as 'the old lady' by everyone."
"Aw, Chris. You should let the kids have their toys."
"It wasn't that he had it, it was that he kept playing some new game called dabo on it. He wasn't concentrating at all. He ruined our lab and cost me two hours of sleep making up for it. I should have just knocked it out of his hand." She growled.
Ny smiled again. "Well at least you're making friends."
"I wish I had someone to work out with."
"No volunteers to play the part of the piñata for your Kzinti sticks?"
"Nah, no one who yelps like you."
"I didn't yelp, you knocked the wind out of my lungs. Which I might remind you, was an illegal move on a novice like me."
"It wasn't illegal. It just wasn't fair."
"You want to argue semantics or do you want to whine about school?"
Christine paused and sighed lightly, "I sure do miss you, you know that?"
"Yeah, me too."
"How much time do you have left on subspace?"
"About 15 minutes. Why?"
"You should call your family. I don't want to use up all your time."
"They'll be fine and I'm already talking to family."
"Thanks."
"How are you?"
"Better. Everyday a little better."
"Nightmares?"
"Not so much anymore." She lied, hoping her friend wouldn't see.
"How's your sessions going?"
"Well after the second one, I was ready to quit."
"Quit? Why?"
"Oh Dr. Wonderful asked me to write in this stupid journal every day and come prepared to talk about why I was coming to the sessions."
"Yeah? Sounds pretty reasonable."
"Sure if we had actually used any of it. He didn't even ask me why I was coming. We never even covered it."
"So?"
"What do you mean 'So'? He made me do all this work and didn't even ask me about it."
"Oh come on, Chris. You know what that was about."
"Yeah, he wanted me to make a decision to come for me not for George or anyone else."
"Uh-huh."
"What pisses me off is that I fell for it, like a first year cadet."
"You are such a child sometimes."
"Thanks Mom!"
"Hey now Old Lady, that's not very nice!"
The two friends laughed and chatted on until the comm officer on duty signaled Uhura that her time was up.