Enterprise High

being a high school AU of ST: XI

with many hijinks

and much angst

x

Chapter Forty-Four: Space Seed

x

Previously on Enterprise High:

"'I bet,' said Gaila, 'that Kirk can't keep it in his pants for a month, and Spock won't go on a date with anybody who asks him out today.' Kirk threw back his head and laughed. 'It's on.' Spock looked absolutely horrified."

"…Only six teams would move on to the final competition, which occurred in late May, smack in the middle of AP tests, finals, college acceptance deadlines, and prom. ... The really terrifying thing about the final race was that they would be building an entirely new hovercar for it. The six finalists received a large grant from the California Hovercar Junior Racing Committee to build a full-size hovercraft four times the size of a regular car. This model was to operate at a professional racing standard, and would hold anywhere from five to ten crewmembers. With the new design's size came increased capabilities: it went considerably faster than the smaller, one-man version, and one of the requirements was that the craft be spaceworthy. It was quite a lot to blueprint, build, test, and practice with in just three months."

x

The patio at Obie's was built unromantically of concrete. Five years ago a company poured six pillars and set up chicken coop fencing, which the first employees wrapped Christmas lights around the top of. The glass wall that faced the patio from the interior of the restaurant was tinted. Kirk and Spock, standing near it, could see their reflections in the corners of their eyes.

"How are you?" said Spock. He held his glass of coke lightly in both hands.

"I'm good," said Kirk, rubbing the back of his neck. He smiled almost automatically. There was softness around Spock's eyes. "I really am. I think I need to relax."

"You are generally so good at it," said Spock, sipping his Pepsi. "I think that you will have an easy time doing so."

Kirk laughed. "You think? Really? Come on, there's so much to do. I mean, it's the end of senior year. Everything is starting to happen. And it's just now nearing, um…"

"What?" said Spock.

"I completely forgot about Gaila's bet," said Kirk. "Shit."

"Have you accidentally slept with somebody recently?" said Spock, trying to act sarcastic and not like his life hinged on the answer.

"No," said Kirk quickly. Then he looked contemplative for a minute. "Oh, right, no, I really haven't. What about your dates?"

Actually, Spock had been forcefully reminded of Gaila's bet because Gaila, trying to be helpful, had set him up with a website dedicated to scheduling his ninety-four dates. If he did five a day—apparently an hour at a coffee house counted as a date to Gaila—he'd be done in a little under three weeks.

"I am due to begin them on Wednesday," said Spock. He had chosen the date arbitrarily. "They will take an unfortunate amount of time. I continue to hold you responsible for this bet."

"You're not being forced," said Kirk, amused. "It's not like Gaila'll hold a phaser to your head if you don't follow through with your part of it."

Honestly, Spock had no idea why he was doing any of this. He was completely willing to blame Kirk for it, though. "My sense of obligation combined with the fact that I deserve this entirely, having gotten myself into it by listening to you and not immediately and vociferously rejecting your idiotic plan."

"Gaila's plan. Not mine."

"I choose to place the blame on you, however," said Spock. "It is easier. And more natural."

"Can't argue with that." Kirk rubbed his neck again. "Hey, so, Bones and Christine just left to go study, so, maybe that's a good idea?"

"Yes, I should go," said Spock. He was a little disappointed that Kirk was dismissing him so easily. "I will see you tomorrow, Jim." He began to turn away.

"Woah, wait," said Kirk, hurrying forward and wrapping his hand around Spock's upper arm. "I meant, we should study together, you know?"

"Oh," said Spock. He blinked. "Why, yes, that would be a very good idea."

"Cool," said Kirk, letting Spock go and awkwardly sticking his hands in his pockets. "So, my house? It might not be great—mom and Sam and Aurelan are going to be there, but, you know." He hesitated. "I've seen your place plenty of times, but you've only been to mine… once?"

"For dinner," said Spock. "At the beginning of the school year. That was a very long time ago."

"When we hated each other, remember?" said Kirk. He laughed. "We fought the whole time."

"Yes," said Spock, remembering how his mother had smiled at Kirk. Amanda had liked him very much. He wished suddenly that he could tell her how much Kirk meant to him now. He shook his head slightly, to dislodge the memories. "You were and still are quite irritating."

"You know, I don't insult you as much as you insult me," said Kirk, arching his eyebrow at Spock. Spock arched his eyebrow right back.

"You should 'get on that,'" he said, air-quoting. "I will retrieve my study materials and see you at your residence shortly." He turned to leave.

"Deal," said Kirk, grinning. "I can't wait."

"Neither can I," said Spock over his shoulder, and was surprised that he had said that aloud.

x

Kirk nearly crashed his motorcycle into the house. He near about flung himself inside. "Mom! We have to clean the house! Right now! Mom! Seriously! Mom!"

"What are you yelling about?" Winona said from the office. "James Tiberius Kirk, are there police after you again?"

"Stop asking me that!" Kirk whined, pushing some magazines onto shelves. "Spock's going to come over to study."

"What?" said Winona, actually sticking her head out of the office. She caught sight of Kirk staggering by under a load of cups and dishes.

"He's going to be at the house in like ten minutes," said Kirk. "Mom, seriously. I'll—I don't know, name something you've been wanting me to do for a while, and I'll do it."

"Oh, I will think of something," called Winona, bustling into the bathroom and extracting a bottle of Windex from under the sink. "I'll get you to sign a damn contract."

"Later," said Kirk. "Do we have any air freshener? I think the bread molded."

"Which bread?"

"Um, all of it."

"We should use the replicator less often," Winona muttered, spraying the toothpaste-spotted mirror. "I've got candles in my room. Don't set anything on fire!"

"Maybe!"

x

Eleven minutes later, Winona was trying to talk Kirk out of vacuuming when the doorbell rang. "Do not come out here while he's here and try to talk to us," Kirk hissed.

"Do you like him?" said Winona, highly amused. "I mean, like like him? That's what's going on here, isn't it?"

"Shut up!"

Winona gasped, totally delighted. "You do! You're going to be putting your best moves on! I'll call Sam and tell him and Aurelan to come home early so Spock can meet his in-laws."

"Oh my god, mom, me and Spock are not getting married!" Kirk considered clawing at his face. "I may kill you. Also, you are his in-law!"

"Spock and I," said Winona. Kirk aimed a punch at her. "Alright, alright, I'm going to my office!"

"And stay there!" pled Kirk.

He ran over to the door, paused to make sure he didn't look like he had run over to the door, then opened it calmly. "Hey," he said, totally casual.

"Greetings," said Spock, eyebrows a little more on alert than usual. "I had forgotten how far away from the school your house is."

"Yeah, it's really great on heavy-traffic mornings. Come in."

Spock stepped inside carefully. Kirk took his backpack and put it down next to the couch. "Want anything from the kitchen? Water? Milk? Cranberry juice? Her'aak?"

"Water, please," said Spock, sitting on the couch. Kirk thought all of his movements seemed rather… prim. He tried not to overanalyze.

"Be right back!" On his way to the kitchen he couldn't help but correct a few of the dining room chairs. Spock was making rustling noises as he got study materials out of his backpack. Kirk came back with two glasses of water and sat them on the coffee table. For a second, he hovered, not sure where to sit—on the couch next to Spock, in the armchair to their left, or maybe, on the floor? Spock glanced up, through his hair, to see why Kirk was immobile, and Kirk thought weakly that his only real option now was in Spock's lap. Or next to him. Yes, that was more appropriate.

"Are you well?" said Spock, obviously concerned. He leaned forward, the tendons in his neck flexing attractively. Kirk gulped.

"Great," said Kirk. "Shipshape. You?"

Spock eyed him. "Would you like to work on homework?"

"Yep," said Kirk. "Absolutely. So! Um, what are we working on?"

They wove through the physics and calculus homework in about two hours before digging into the readings for history, which went less smoothly than the physics and calculus because apparently they had different opinions about the Arab War. Things devolved surprisingly quickly into Spock saying things like "Excuse me, I do not support colonialism" and "I did not realize that you were a terrorist sympathizer" and Kirk saying things like "Okay, we can talk about the Yishuv massacres later, then" and "God, take a film class, I was referring to the movie, not the actual Battle of Algiers."

They sat there in silence for a while, fuming slightly: nothing like the Middle East to get somebody steamed up. Finally Spock said, "I am sorry I called your mother a terrorist."

That had been a low point. "And I'm sorry I called you Lawrence of Arabia," said Kirk.

"Our actions were uncalled for," said Spock. "Can I have some more water?"

Kirk laughed. "Oh, I see what the apology was for."

"My apology was entirely sincere," said Spock, handing Kirk his glass. "With an ice cube, please?"

"Just one? What are you, European?"

"Then my request would be none, I believe," said Spock. He checked the time. "Jim, we have spent thirty minutes arguing about the Arab War. We need to write the essay."

"Ugh," said Kirk. "Just… ugh. Do we have to?"

"No, you do not have to," said Spock. "You can choose not to write this essay. You would then fail the essay, which would lower your grade for history and, consequently, your GPA, which would leave me first in the class."

Kirk whipped out his PADD. "I'll just get started, then."

Spock sighed. "Jim, you must stop making such good grades. At this point, I will never be first in the class again."

"Your point being?" said Kirk. "Hey, does MLA heading go class, teacher or teacher, class?"

"Class, teacher," said Spock innocently, opening up a word processor on his own PADD.

Kirk snorted. "Dude, I just Googled it, and it's teacher, class. That was mean."

"I was going to correct you," said Spock. Kirk glared at him. "Eventually."

"Oh, I am so sure. I thought Vulcans didn't lie!"

"It is not physically impossible."

"This wasn't even a good excuse for a lie!"

"Calm yourself, Jim."

"I mean, you were being actively malicious!"

"It was a joke," said Spock, his voice richly amused. "I have, as you advised, lightened up."

Kirk didn't know how to reply to that.

They were well into their third body paragraphs in little under an hour. Kirk found it weirdly easy to concentrate around Spock. Sure, he was totally distracted by just about everything Spock did, from the movement of his right pinky when he tapped delete to the moue of his lips as he focused on a particularly complicated passage. But Spock's presence was stirring. Spock was so naturally and overwhelmingly intelligent that Kirk's own intellect, cramped and unprofessional as it was, wanted to come out to play.

They finished their essays and traded them to edit, got into another miniature argument about the Middle East, and called a time-out when they realized that they hadn't even started on the English homework. "Keats?" said Spock slowly, staring at the syllabus. "'Bright Star'? 'Ode to a Nightingale?'"

"Shame that 'When I have fears' isn't on there," said Kirk. "What page in the textbook? Oh, never mind, I can search it."

"What poem is that?" said Spock, looking up at Kirk.

"Oh," said Kirk. He stared at his screen for a while. "'When I have fears that I may cease to be.' Really cheerful. Kind of my favorite poem, actually."

Spock made a small, noncommittal noise. After a while he said, "'Bright Star' seems… rather melodramatic."

"He is that, sometimes," said Kirk. "The Romantics, you know. Theatrical bunch." A while later, "The ode is good, though."

"Yes, if obviously inspired by Shakespeare," said Spock.

"I get it," said Kirk. "My taste in poets is lacking."

"I have not read your poem yet," said Spock. "But I shall look it up."

"Fine," said Kirk. "I'm going to—go get a book. Be right back." He dropped his PADD on the couch and went to his room.

Spock read the poem twice, and then he packed his backpack. He was just zipping it when Kirk came out of his room, sans book. "I should go," said Spock.

"Oh, okay," said Kirk. "Yeah, we finished, didn't we?"

"I still have some work for programming that I must complete at home, but yes, we have finished with the work required for our shared classes." Spock stood up and fitted his backpack over his shoulders. "Thank you."

"Welcome," said Kirk. "See you tomorrow." He walked Spock to the door. "Don't forget about the hoverclub meeting."

"I have not," said Spock. He hesitated on the threshold, the outside light casting his face in stark relief. But all he said was goodnight, and then he was gone into the waves.

Kirk wanted to go out and stare after him and then look into the sky for a long time, but he was tired and he'd had enough of Keats for one night, so he stayed inside and extracted his mom for her office and they watched some TV. He slept well, and dreamed of clouds.

x

The light swung over their heads. Chapel reached up to still its arc as Scotty spread the blueprints across the table. Everybody leaned in, their heads casting shadows over the blue graph paper.

"Th' bad news," said Scotty, shoulders drooped, "is that we have t' start all over. Th' requirements for th' sixth round hovercraft are that it be of a new an' original design, distinctly different from th' previous hovercraft, that it be spaceworthy, and that it be crewed."

Kirk nodded. "Are we going to crew everybody?"

"Per regulations, th' minimum is five," said Scotty. "However, there're advantages t' havin' more aboard. We'll need a pilot, navigator, commander, engineer, communicator, technician, and backup—seven. And it may be nice t'ave a second backup, considering how things've been goin' for us on th' track."

"What would our positions be?" said Kirk.

Scotty scratched his head. "Well, I've been wonderin' about that. You'd be command, Jim."

Kirk said, "Me?"

"Of course," said Spock immediately.

There was a short silence before Scotty coughed and said, "And Hikaru'd be pilot. Pavel, with his math skills an' slightly weird obsession with maps, would be navigator." Chekov looked indignant, then resigned. "Nyota'd be th' communicator, I'd be th' engineer, Spock'd be th' technician, and we can use Leo an' Christine, who've medical an' mechanical skills, as backup in case of emergency."

"Backup?" grumbled Bones.

"Which job would you rather have?" said Chapel. "We're not qualified for the others. Spock's the one being shorted, if anyone is."

Spock pursed his lips, but Kirk said, "I agree. I think Spock should command."

"Jim, I absolutely insist," said Spock, looking hard at Kirk. "While I am qualified for the other jobs, I am not as qualified as anyone else. This includes you. You have proven yourself to be an excellent if eccentric captain of our team, and I have no doubt that you will make the perfect captain of this ship."

"Hear, hear," said Sulu. There was a murmur of agreement.

"Wow," said Kirk, trying not to smile. "You guys are too good to me."

"It's true," said Bones, although he then proceeded to punch Kirk on the arm.

"Okay then," said Kirk. "Where do we start?" He looked at Scotty.

"We need," said Scotty, "more o' that wonderful gurian alloy, Jim. And archanite, if you can swing it."

"Me?" said Kirk.

"Aye, you work for Gothos," said Scotty. "'Tis where we got it last time. They may still owe us a favor for savin' their arses."

Kirk sighed. "I've been on leave for two months now," he said. "They've been updating their security mainframe. But I can call my boss. She can definitely see if they've got what we're looking for." He looked down at the blueprints. "Scotty, if I'm seeing this right, we'll need about twenty times more gurian and archanite than we needed last time, right?"

"Aye," said Scotty. "Th' structure is, ah, two times th' size o' your average Starfleet shuttle. T' carry five, th' frame needs t' weigh 2,000 kF, at th' least. Addin' crew from there is just a matter of another 100 kF per person."

Uhura whistled. "This thing isn't going to fit in the garage. Have we considered that?"

They hadn't. "Maybe we could rent a building," Chapel suggested. "The grant we got from the Racing Committee should cover the cost of an empty building for a few months."

"How are we gonna do this in three months?" Bones demanded. "I don't know about y'all, but I've got homework, college applications, AP tests, you name it."

"And prom," Sulu put in. Spock looked like he wanted to roll his eyes.

"Think about buildin' a house," said Scotty. "We start with th' frame an' work outward. The frame's easy t' put together—it'll take mayhap a week or so, dependin' on when we get that material. Th' engines'll take th' longest—we should test for at least a fortnight before th' race. Even if we 'ave little as two months t' work on th' engines, we'll finish."

"God, this is going to be time-consuming," said Chapel, rubbing her cheeks. "Are these finalized plans, Scotty?"

"Tried an' true," said Scotty proudly. "Ah've been compilin' 'em since th' beginnin' o' th' year. Finished th' tests before Christmas."

"You are an engineering god," said Kirk. "Where'd you find the time?"

"Ah'm not as obsessed with grades as you lot," said Scotty. "Got a few ninety-fives. Ah figure, if we win this, colleges'll be snappin' us right up."

"I think Starfleet already wants you as an officer," said Sulu. "Scotty, this really is incredible. Genius, really—how'd you come up with running the hydrogen through the Blanken router?"

"Oh, 'tis theoretical, but th' sim said it'd work," said Scotty. "More fun t' fly by th' seat o' your pants, aye?"

Spock and Bones for once agreed with each other. "I would not say so," Spock said at the same times Bones stated, "We're not gonna be flyin' theoretically, Scotty, we're gonna be flyin' actually."

"Oh, I'm sure it'll work," said Kirk, grinning around at everybody. "If the computer says it will, then it will."

"Great leadership skills," muttered Bones.

"Let's go scout out a garage," said Uhura. "I've got a car—who needs a ride?"

The hoverclub spent the rest of the afternoon driving back and forth between two garages, one of which was smallish but nicely located, and the other of which was huge but nowhere near a coffee place. Bones and Chekov had a small-scale war over which one to choose and eventually it came to a vote: the large garage, in an Elizabeth Street shopping center, won seven-to-one, Chekov having promised to regale them with songs about the Motherland the next time he was drunk in order to win their votes. Kirk called Pike, who signed the paperwork immediately, and suddenly they had a place to work.

The garage was at the back of the shopping center. It was three stories tall and five wide, with built in steel tables around the edges, plenty of power strips, and two bathrooms down a hallway. It was old: the lights had a dial that Kirk searched out and turned, slowly, so that the sun rose in the big concrete chamber, lights halfway up the wall and tiling the ceiling humming to life as he turned his hand. The hoverclub stood around the walls, leaning against the steel tables. Kirk walked to the center and faced all of them.

"I'm not a good enough leader to give a speech right now," said Kirk, sticking his hands in his pockets. "But I will say this: building this thing is gonna suck. It's gonna be slow and frustrating and we won't feel like we're getting anything done. But in three months, we will be finished, and we will have on our hands a state-of-the-art hovercraft that is going to blow the competition out of the sky. And it's all going to be because of you guys."

"Hear, hear," said Bones. Most of the club gave a little cheer. Kirk grinned at all of them, and focused on Spock, who smiled a real smile at him.

"And now," said Kirk, "can we please go home and get some sleep before the torture begins again tomorrow."

"Hear, hear," said Bones again.

x

That night, Uhura was drifting off to sleep when her phone buzzed. Gaila had sent her a late text about a homework problem. She replied and closed her eyes again, but wasn't sleepy anymore.

Uhura was impatient. After a few minutes, she got up and put her slippers on. She sat on the edge of her bed for a while, trying to be tired. The rest of the house was dark: her father was an early riser and was generally asleep by ten thirty. She opened her door and padded down the stairs to the kitchen.

She sat at the kitchen table drinking cranberry juice and thinking about calculus for a while. Calculus was boring, though, and her attention wandered. On the far wall was a picture of Uhura as a baby. It was actually three photographs, taken in succession: in the first Uhura was looking at the camera, expressionless. In the second, she had begun to smile. In the third, she was grinning full-out.

Uhura put her glass in the sink and went into the living room. She pulled up the photo server and sat there, flicking through photographs from her childhood. Her mother was generally the one taking pictures, so it was mostly Uhura and her father, always smiling. Sometimes her mother appeared, playing with a toy or holding Uhura in her arms. Uhura paused on those. Her mother was always dressed nicely, like she had just gotten home from work. She remembered vaguely that her mother had worked all the time, back then.

She put the server to sleep and went into her mother's office, which hadn't changed since her mother's death. The cleaning bots kept it free of dust, but the air smelled different in this part of the house: Uhura and her father only went into the room on her mother's birthday. They would come and sit in the two chairs across from the desk and talk to each other about her, what they remembered and liked and didn't like. This time, Uhura went behind the desk and sat in her mother's chair, which was thin and sparsely padded, but ergonomical. She opened all of the drawers and looked through the papers and PADDs her mother had left. She had memorized all of them, from the little post-its about bills and shopping to the three thick, titanium hard drives that were keyword protected. Uhura had tried to hack into them but had never been able.

As always, Uhura got out the leather-bound notebook hidden in the back of the deepest drawer. Itidal Kabwegyere had been a terrible artist. Uhura smiled at her mother's attempts to draw human faces and animal bodies. The first ten pages or so of the notebook were full of scratchy figures with weird anatomy and terrible shading. The rest was empty, except for the last page, on which her mother had written two riddles:

You do not catch it chasing it. It is here. Take it.

and

Wherever I go, it follows me close.

"The sun," said Uhura softly. "The shadow."

She closed the book and put it back. She was about to close the drawer and leave when she saw one of the hard drives again. Without thinking much of it, she plugged it in to the monitor in the room. The keyword came up, cursor flashing. Uhura typed in, as a password, sun.

The screen was still for a moment, then faded and flickered to another screen, which wanted another password. Uhura gasped. Shadow, she typed, and the screen faded to show the hard drive's contents.

It was empty except for a photograph of Uhura and her father. For a moment Uhura was disappointed. Then she felt like she was going to cry.

She enlarged the photograph. She loved this one. She and her father were in the library. Uhura was reaching for a book on the third shelf, which was a little taller than she was, and her father was bending down to help her with it.

Then Uhura saw that something was different. She could read the spines of the books on the shelves, and there was a book in the photograph that wasn't in the photograph she was used to seeing. It was a large green book on the fifth shelf, entitled Kupenda. She looked closer at the photograph: the book had been photoshopped into the photograph. It had been done just well enough to look natural, but just badly enough to be obviously an edit.

Uhura looked around the room. There were a few books, but none of them were big and green. She looked everywhere in the office, but didn't see it. She went back to the library but it wasn't there.

Then she paused and went back to the office again. Kupenda. She sat down at the desk and stared at it. There was a paperscreen stuck onto the top, and a thick-based lamp on the corner. She put the lamp on the floor and peeled the paperscreen off. The top of the desk was blank. Kupenda. That was so familiar. If she said it to her father he'd know why it was familiar. Kupenda. It was the Swahili word for love, but it was something else, too. Kupenda. Oh. Right. Obviously!

She pulled out the top drawer on the right, the one that held the hard drive. It was small, only twice the size of her hand, and deep. She pulled everything out of it, took it out of its recess, and flipped it over. There, on the bottom of the drawer, was the maker's stamp: Baas Kupenda, March 2178, and a seam around the two-inch square maker's stamp which she picked at until it came loose and fell off into her hand. She turned the block of wood over. In a recess built into the drawer, under a clear plastic screen, was a tiny green datachip.

Uhura took it out and plugged it into the monitor.

x

I don't know if I've mentioned this here, but I really should: this story is going to be fifty-one chapters long—there are only seven more chapters to go.