What Does This Button Do?
by Starsinger
Inspired by the latest chapter of "New Money Old Money" (AO3 Site) where Bones and Jim go on vacation and Jim asks that question. Don't own them.
Bones and company learned, of all the questions Jim could ask, probably the most dangerous was, "Hey, what does this button do?" The first time he asked that question, he ended somebody else's run at the Kobayashi Maru before they even got to the Klingons. It was the self-destruct button, and was probably the reason that it started to take three officers to set a self-destruct on a starship after that incident. The cadet was able to retake the test without the presence of James Tiberius Kirk.
The second time was on an away mission, again as a cadet, to Mithras V. Kirk hit the wrong button and they ended up on Risa. Oddly enough, nobody called for help for a week. The third time, Jim catapulted Sulu out of a cavern of solid rock and back onto the surface of the planet which had no atmosphere. Fortunately, everyone had been wearing full space suits so all Sulu had to do was call the ship for help.
The final time anyone let Jim anywhere near the button was just before Spock finished interpreting the hieroglyphs of some ancient civilization. Spock intercepted Jim before he could press the button and wipe out the entire existing civilization of the planet. So a rule was added to the Enterprise's unwritten rule list:
"Never let the Captain touch anything on away missions, especially if it appears to be a button."