Chapter 3

Jim was given a week to pack his belongings. It took him barely an hour. He never believed in keeping personal mementos, and there sure as hell wasn't anything of sentimental value for him in fucking Riverside.

Shipping out of Riverside also meant he didn't have to go back to school, and that was okay for Jim. He had been out of school for so long that he would probably have to repeat the year anyways. School had stopped meaning anything after Sam ran away, and he crashed his dad's Chevy convertible. School had always bored him. The classes involved counting livestock and plotting lunar planting cycles. He wasn't going to be a farmer or a rancher like most people in his class were going to be.

He spent his days in his room surfing on his PADD and reading old 16th century plays. He knew he was probably the only thirteen-year-old who read William Shakespeare in this era. The man's words seemed to transcend time. Some of the plays like Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream he had read numerous times.

His holographic star ships twirled in the air above his head. He had all the latest models. They were holographic models of starships that Starfleet sent him every year on his birthday. It was one of the many forms of retribution from Starfleet.

He only left his rooms for meals. His mother insisted that they all sit at the dining room table together as a family. He wasn't sure why his mother was even trying anymore. His mother and Frank sat on one side of the table, and Jim sat on the other side. Sam's seat was empty. Nobody mentioned Sam anymore. He wondered if his mother even cared.

"Jim, eat your greens," she pushed a plate of overcooked, boiled replicated broccoli and cabbage in front of him.

Jim blinked.

"Eat your greens, Jim," she said again.

Any other time, Jim would have argued or remarked about why she even cared. However, this time it wasn't worth it. He was going to leave soon. He stabbed his fork into the overcooked vegetables. He over dramatized taking a large bite. When he was sure his mother was satisfied and turned her attention back to her own dinner, Jim slid the rest of the vegetables under a slice of bread. He was decidedly not going to eat the vegetables.

When the week ended, Jim was almost reluctant to leave. He had forgotten how different Frank could be when his mother was around. Frank was actually normal and fuck… friendly. He hadn't gone to the bar and gotten himself wasted. Fuck, Frank even offered to take him out for ice cream one night after dinner. He decidedly said 'no'. He wasn't sure who was more relieved: him or Frank.

However the morning of his departure, he woke up and found his mother in her Starfleet uniform and her bags by the door. He knew then. Nothing would change. She couldn't even fucking stay long enough to see him be shipped off.

"Sorry, Jimmy. Starfleet won't let me take anymore shore leave." She pulled him into a feeble hug that was awkward for them both. She ruffled his blond bangs. "You be good on Tarsus, Jimmy."

Jim nodded. It wasn't a promise or anything.

She left quickly after that, and Frank's happy mask immediately disappeared. Jim quickly locked himself in his room.

Jim sat on his bed. He looked around the empty room. The same room he had lived in for over thirteen years. It looked so unlived in. He had managed to fit his entire life into two duffle bags. The only things left were his bed, this desk and his chair. There wasn't much nostalgia left for him. It had long disappeared when Sam ran away, and his mother left them with Frank.

When his PADD flashed 1600, Jim picked up his two bags from the floor. He sighed. He had to go find Frank and convince him to take him to the shipyard. When he wandered into the living room, he almost laughed. His mother hadn't even been gone for six hours, and Frank was already 'entertaining'. Jim had always been curious where Frank found them.

He was currently being sandwiched between two Andorians. An Andorian male was currently mounting im from behind. An Andorian female was currently sucking him off from the front. Frank had buried his face into her blue skin. A second Andorian female was sprawled out on his mother upholstered couch. She was naked and blue. She was plucking purple grapes off its vines. They were contained in one of his mother's crystalline bowls. Any other day, he would have walked over and pulled the bowl away. He hated it when any of Frank's 'guests' touched any of his mother's possessions. They were dirty. It was dirty. He recognized it immediately as one of his parents' wedding presents from a distant great-aunt that he had never met. There were many relatives he never met. Sam had always said their father's death had broken their family.

It was the one on the couch who noticed him first. She winked at him. He wanted to puke. She draped one arm over the arm rest and threw her head back. Her blue antennas twitched excitedly. She brushed back her silver bangs from her eyes. "Frankie, there is a boy watching us," she said lazily. She popped another grape into her large sultry lips. She licked her fingers.

Frank looked up startled, his mouth in mid moan. He immediately closed it when he noticed Jim. He saw Frank flash his grey eyes at him. He pushed the female and male Andorians away. "That's just Jimmy. He's a she-man. Jimmy, show them." Frank barked out one of his crueler laughs.

"Exciting," the Andorian female who had been giving Frank a blow job exclaimed. She licked her lips. Jim could see Frank's cum leaking from her lips and between the large gaps in her teeth.

"Fuck off, Frank." Jim hissed. He was finally going to get as far away as possible from Frank. He regretted all those years of never telling his mother about Frank's unfaithfulness.

"He's fierce, Frankie. Why haven't you introduced us sooner?" The Andorian on the couch asked. She popped another grape into her mouth. "And pretty… especially the eyes. They are so blue."

"He's just a little freak." Frank laughed. "Git!" He picked up a beer bottle from the table. He threw it at him. Jim had learned long ago to not flinch. Frank had never been able to hit him when he was like this. Like always, the bottle bounced off the wall. It left a dark stain on the wall. He hoped his mother would come home and see it. Frank used to make him clean the beer stains off the walls after his escapades. He doubted Frank would bother to do it now. He was too lazy and disgusting.

Frank wasn't worth it. He had never been worth it. Jim tightened hold on his duffle bags and swung them over his shoulders. Frank was disgusting. He had always been disgusting. Jim turned on his heels and slammed the front door hard. He heard Frank scream 'freak' at him one last time.

He hadn't realized he had been holding his breath until the warm blast of late Iowan spring heat hit him squarely in his face. Standing there alone on the front porch of the farmhouse, Jim realized he didn't have to go to Tarsus. He was free. He was free from his mother. He was free from Frank. He could already hear Frank and the Andorians' moans echoing throughout the farm house.

His mother would soon be outside the subspace frequency range. Frank would never come looking for him. Sam had run away to his grandparents' farm, and his mother never brought him back. However he wasn't Sam, and most importantly he would still be in fucking Riverside. Jim repositioned his bags. He glanced back one more time at the farm house. There was nothing here for him. "Anywhere is better than fucking Riverside." Jim muttered. He clenched his duffle bags tighter.

It was a long walk to Riverside Shipyards. Even in the late afternoon, it was still bustling with workers. It had been a long time since Starfleet commissioned a large star ship. It was no secret that since the Kelvin incident, Starfleet had become more hesitant to launch new starships. However, there was still work in the form of small scale ships and shuttles.

It wasn't hard to find his shuttle. The outbound shuttles were all located in one section of the shipyard. There was only one shuttle going to Jupiter Station. He barely made it. He was the last one to board. They didn't even ask for his tickets or his paper work. It was probably better that way since his mother never gave them to him, and Frank had probably lost them or had used them as toilet paper.

He took a window seat in the back of the shuttle. He stuffed his bags under his seat. He barely had time to pull his harness over his shoulder blades before the shuttle took off. He probably should have been more excited as the shuttle reached its cruising attitude. He had never traveled far enough during any of his previous shuttle rides to break through the atmosphere.

However as they neared Jupiter Station, Jim did press his face against the glass panel. Jupiter Station was one of the Sol System's main outbound hubs. The other was San Francisco Fleet Yard that orbited Earth. However, San Francisco Yards also doubled as a star ship construction station. Once all the outer hull pieces were assembled together at Riverside Shipyard they were individually transported to San Francisco Fleet Yard and then bolted together. It created twice as many jobs.

Jupiter Station was larger and shinier. He had only seen pictures of it on his PADD and in holovids at school. The little shuttle looked so small and inconsequential among the long rows of Starfleet starships that were lined up in one section of the space station. They were all glorious silver ladies. He wondered if his dad's starship had been just as sparkly, or if the one that was taking his mother further and further away from him was just as jaw dropping. He loved their crisp, clean designs. He could admire them for hours.

He was the last to leave the shuttle. He shuffled out and stepped into the large station. Jupiter station was the galactic transportation hub between the Sol system and the rest of the universe. Its lower levels were off limits to civilians and served as a research and military base.

He whistled when he directed his gaze upwards. They had never mentioned in any of the books just how tall the ceilings were. There were portions of the ceiling that were transparent. He could even see the stars and asteroid belt in the far distance.

There was a wide variety of humans and aliens from all over the galaxy here. He could easily recognize the Andorians, Vulcans and Tellarities. Jim knew his Federation history. He could easily distinguish the founding members of the United Federation of Planets despite Riverside Iowa being one of Earth's more homogenous towns. Jim was used to a sea of white with a few foreigners who lived around Riverside shipyard. They rarely ventured out to the rest of the town and always seemed to be a different band of people. They were mysterious and interesting not liked the natives. Jim always figured if it were not for the shipyard; Riverside could still be lost in the 20th century.

His shuttle out to the Tarsus system wasn't until late, or was it early in the day? He figured he shouldn't be measuring dates or times by the Earth's relation to the sun. Soon, he would be far away from this solar system, and Tarsus would be orbiting a different sun or was it suns? It wasn't nostalgia. He had never been partial to this sun.

It seemed like everyone else had a place to go and things to see. Riverside had always been slow, slower than Jim would have liked. Jim had always been a boy of action. He didn't like lazy Sundays. Jim remembered when Granny Davis said, "Jimmy, you're definitely a Kirk. You've always been in a rush since the day you were born." She only said that once. They all knew the implications of that statement. Jim had been born almost four months early. Had he not been, his dad would have never even heard his first cries. Jim wondered if his mother would have named him Tiberus after all.

A knobby finger tugged at his shirt sleeve. Jim whipped around. It belong a short alien. He looked more like a toad than a humanoid. There was a horrible, swampy stench surrounding him.

"Are you lost, little one?" The alien asked. He grinned at him. "Would you like a… guide?" He licked his lips. Jim pulled free from the alien. He shook his head.

"You're a pretty little…" The alien sniffed him. "Girl. Accidents could happen."

"I ain't a girl."

"I'm never wrong, little girl."

Jim rolled his eyes. "Well, you are now."

The alien sniffed him again. He smiled revealing a row of golden yellow teeth. "Peculiar, very peculiar."

"So, I've heard." Jim muttered and turned away. He heard the alien laugh at him as he walked away. Fucking weird.

He eventually found himself in a shopping strip. His stomach grumbled as he wandered through the rows of Deltan jewelry. His mother's wedding ring had been of Deltan made. He had seen it once a long time ago before Frank, before he grew up and realized his mere presence caused her pain. It was simple and elegant unlike the gaudy ring Frank had given her. That had been the one and only gift Frank had ever given his mother.

He stayed until the store owner started giving him uneasy looks. Jim didn't blame him. He didn't know Jim had enough credits under his name to buy out the entire store. One of the perks of being the son of a decreased Starfleet officer was the annual credits Starfleet deposited under his name as reparation. Jim and any future children he would have would receive these payments for life. It was Starfleet's belief that a death in the family would impact at least two generations. Jim always suspected Frank never knew that Jim had access to the credits. They weren't 'moveable' funds until his eighteen's birthday, but Jim wasn't a genius for nothing.

He ate dinner at a small oriental noodle booth. A green alien with horns served him. He had never seen this type of alien before. The noodles were cool and sweet. They tasted different from anything he had ever eaten before. He tried paying in Federation credits. The alien just laughed. "Keep your credits, Kid. Starfleet doesn't use money."

Jim blinked. He had heard rumors that Starfleet was like a community of its own. Starfleet officers and personnel believed that work was solely for personal growth, and that was enough of compensation. The day anyone enlisted in Starfleet; Starfleet in turn would take care of that enlisted crew member. Everything a member of Starfleet 'owned' was Starfleet issued.

He left the booth quickly after that and found a seat near a vacuum proof window. The glow illuminated from the star ships on the other side of the window felt warm and tender. For a while he observed the civilians and officers that passed by. He tried guessing from their appearance and state of mind where they were going and where they came from. There was no way he could confirm any of his guesses, but it was still fun. When he got tired, he pulled out his PADD and started reading the tales of Horatio Hornblower. He loved the old naval stories of Horatio and his crew.

The ship out to Tarsus ended up being delayed. Jim was yawning and could barely keep his eyes open when he finally boarded the USS Republic. It was long past midnight in Iowa. He could barely remember being welcomed by the captain. He just remembered the captain had a large smile and twinkling chocolate brown eyes. The USS Republic was a smaller ship with only a crew of three hundred. It was an older design left over from the early days before the foundation of the United Federation of Planets.

He was given quarters in one of the lower decks of the ship. There were already three other people fast asleep in the room. He remembered the lieutenant that showed him the room saying that they were engineering ensigns. She was apologetic about it. Normally civilians received their own rooms, but they hadn't expected so many late arrivals to Tarsus. As she left, she mentioned that she hoped the low hum from the ship's wrap core wouldn't keep him awake. It usually took a long time to get used to. She laughed that she wasn't sure she was even used to it, and she had been serving for almost five years now.

He set his bags down near his bed and pulled off his sneakers. He stayed awake long enough to see the ship disengage from the station and jump to warp speed. He fell asleep to the lull of the ship's wrap core. He never felt more alive, nor had he ever slept so well before.

Author's Notes: From my limited knowledge of Star Trek, I'm pretty sure star ships aren't supposed to be built in Earth despite what the 2009 movie showed. I'm just going to pretend that in the end the Enterprise was actually built in space, and what Jim saw was just the outer hull or something not actually assembled.

I haven't seen every episode of Star Trek ever made so my familiarity with alien races is still very limited. Please pardon the nondescript and not canon alien races.