Authors Note:

Hello everyone and I'm sorry for not updating for a while this chapter has a lot of Sulu in it and Jo-Jo the parrot. Thank you for your reviews and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

I own nothing.

Feathered Friends

Jim thought Scotty would've learned from fiddling with that machine the last time but it seemed he was mistaken. The engineer had once again done something with one of his experimental devices and Jim now had a Peregrine Falcon instead of his main helmsman.

For his part Hikaru seemed to be handling himself quite well and was perched on his console while a replacement helmsman manned the station. Scotty and Spock were gathered round the machine responsible trying to find out what went wrong this time. Jim thought it would have been easy to fix considering that it had happened before but apparently Scotty fixing it the last time had been largely due to luck. Sulu was now admiring his wings and flexing them experimentally and Jim knew exactly what the pilot wanted to do.

"Well Sulu, while Spock and Scotty work shall we head down to one of the gyms and see what those wings of yours can do?"

Hikaru looked at Jim and if it wasn't for the beak the captain was certain that his helmsman would be grinning. Taking that look as agreement Jim went over and held out his arm to allow the feathered pilot to hop onto it. When he was sure he was stable Jim lifted Sulu up and carefully carried him of the bridge before anyone noticed and tried to stop them.

Jim winced as Hikaru crashed yet again after another failed flying attempt. He walked over as the feathered helmsman got up and shook himself off determinedly and crouched down to allow Sulu to hop onto his arm again.

They'd, or rather Sulu, had been at it for the last half hour with little success. At first the pilot had tried to take off by himself from the ground but that didn't work so they were trying to see if he could glide after launching himself from Jim's arm. So far Sulu had only crashed.

Just as Hikaru was about to get on Jim's arm for another attempt a sudden voice interrupted them.

"Doing it wrong."

Jim looked around for the voice and jumped as Jo-Jo fluttered down to land beside Sulu. The parrot regarded the pilot for before speaking to him quite politely, "Hello."

Jim watched with amusement as the parrot tried to make friends with Sulu.

"Flying problem." Jo-Jo stated and Sulu turned his back on him grumpily. Jo-Jo wasn't to be put off so easily and walked round in front of him, "Silly billy no fly."

Hikaru gave him a glare that would have melted lesser beings but Jo-Jo simply cocked his head before slowly spreading his own wings. The parrot then did a sort of hop-skip and flapped his wings a couple times getting him slightly in the air before landing and turning back to Sulu, "Easy fly."

When the helmsman didn't do anything Jo-Jo walked back to where he started and did the same thing again and once more spoke to Sulu, "Try."

At this point Jim realised what was going on, it seemed Jo-Jo had decided to help this strange new bird out with its obvious problem and coach Hikaru in flying. The pilot must have realised this as well as he, albeit grudgingly, took position and tried to replicate what Jo-Jo did. It took a few attempts but soon the helmsman was performing the manoeuvre perfectly and Jo-Jo continued the training session.

Several hours later after very extensive tutoring from Jo-Jo, Hikaru was flying round the gym like he'd been born a bird with Jo-Jo close behind. From there the real fun began and the two of them were having a whale of a time, they dive-bombed McCoy unexpectedly causing the doctor to jump out of his skin, stole Nyota's slice of cake right off her plate in the Mess hall, explored the upper reaches of Engineering, double-teamed the goose (though they only just escaped afterwards), stole Hendorff's PADD and flew through the corridors carrying it while he chased them and used the bridge as a high speed flight obstacle course, much to the concern of Jim and the rest of the bridge crew.

Eventually Scotty and Spock managed to reverse what had happened and Hikaru was once again his human self. Unfortunately for Jo-Jo the parrot never did work out what had happened to his new friend.

PS-I hope you all liked that and please let me know what you thought, chapter suggestions are always welcome.