Paint and Powder

A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

BETRAYED - The Events of Star Trek III and IV

Written by jhosmer1

2285

Admiral Harold Morrow looked at the battered but unbowed crew of the starship Enterprise. "You've all done remarkable service under the most difficult conditions. You'll be receiving Starfleet's highest commendation, and more importantly, extended shore leave." An excited murmur of approval and relief spread through the crowd. He stopped before one crewmember in particular. "That is, all but you, Mister Scott. They need your wisdom on the new Excelsior. ...Report there tomorrow as Captain of Engineering."

Captain Montgomery Scott frowned. "With all appreciation, sir, I'd prefer to supervise the refit of Enterprise."

"I'm afraid that won't be necessary."

"But, sir..."

"I'm sorry, Mister Scott, but there will be no refit."

Admiral Kirk then stepped forward. "Admiral, I don't understand. The Enterprise is not..."

Looking like he had known this was coming but could not avoid it, Morrow said quietly, "Jim, the Enterprise is forty years old. We feel her day is over."

Scotty stormed away, not bothering to listen any further. He knew this ship, every inch, and while the lass was old, her bones were good. The refit had one problem after another, but with some tender loving maintenance she had years left in her. They both had looked forward to a long life of teaching young cadets to be proper Starfleet officers.

"Scotty?" a female voice said over a nearby intercom. Enterprise sounded tired and a little frightened. "What happens now?"

"Ah, lass..." Scotty said sadly. "Don't you worry none. The Admiral won't let you down."

"The Kobayashi Maru has set sail for the promised land. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledged," Scotty said. He left his office on the Excelsior and swiftly walked down the corridor, one-finger typing a quick message as he did.

"Ah, Mister Scott. Calling it a night?"

Scotty quickly hid a grimace. "Yes, sir."

He had never thought much of Captain Styles, and the man's pompous nature had only gotten worse with his assignment to the Excelsior. What was he trying to prove with that damn swagger stick?

"Turning in myself," Styles said. He smiled in what he probably thought was friendly bonhomie. "Looking forward to breaking some of Enterprise's speed records tomorrow."

"Ah, ah. Yes sir. Good night." Scott said, hurrying past and into the turbolift.

"Level please."

Scotty grimaced freely this time. "Transporter room."

"Thank you."

"Up your shaft!"

A quick transport later, Scotty found himself on board the nearly-empty Enterprise. The woman at transporter controls smiled warmly at him.

"It's good to see you again, Monty," Commander Mira Romaine of Memory Alpha said.

"Mira!" Scotty exclaimed, hugging her warmly. "The years just don't stick to you lass." He patted his stomach. "Unlike me."

"You old rogue," she said warmly. "Flirt all you like, I know you too well to fall for it."

Scotty smiled sadly. "I was too married to the job, and the lass we're here for."

"Not feeling any regrets, are you?"

"No, just wishing things could have been different." He shrugged. "A malaise of the old."

They walked quickly through the darkened halls of the ship to the main computer core. Scotty's codes still worked to let him in, but he had been prepared in case they hadn't. "Get that anti-grav lift over there, Mira," he said. "I'll prep the lass."

A small violet light glowed in the innermost room of the core, where an innocuous black box stood plugged in. Scotty tapped a few buttons on the nearby console and the light glowed brighter. "Lass, you there?"

"Scotty?" Enterprise said. "What happening? I thought I'd wake up in Memory Alpha awaiting a new ship."

"Things have changed, lass," Scotty said, keying several commands into the console. Various interlocks attached to the black box began to disengage.

"Scotty? What are you doing? I'm losing contact with the ship."

"Oh, lass, I'm so sorry. Seems Mr. Spock did some Vulcan mumbo-jumbo to Dr. McCoy, and we need to get his body back from Genesis." He grinned. "Starfleet won't let us, so we're stealing you."

Enterprise's voice turned gleeful. "I'm all for it! But why are you disconnecting me then?"

Scotty's grin faded. "Lass... you're the best of us, and you can go on forever. We can't let you ruin your life for this. It's our fall to take, not yours."

Commander Romaine entered with an antigrav lifter. "I'm ready, Monty."

Scotty nodded. "Lass, you remember Mira Romaine? She's going to see you safely to Memory Alpha."

"Scotty," Enterprise said, anguish filling her voice. "Don't do this! You need me to run the ship! I can help you! PLEASE!"

More interlocks disengaged, severing Enterprise from her body, the only place she had been for the last 40 years. She could barely feel anything of it, of the corridors that Robert April and Christopher Pike had walked, of the Engine Rooms that Hemmer and Scotty had run so well.

"For a milk run to Genesis and Vulcan?" Scotty said. "A chimpanzee and two trainees could run the ship for that. No, lass. We're getting old, but you deserve to be out there in the stars. That's your home."

"Scotty! If you do this, I will hate you and Jim and everyone else for the rest of your lives! Don't you dare disconnect me-!"

Her voice cut off as Scotty cut the last connection. He sighed, and looked far older than his years.

"She didn't really mean it, Monty," Mira said, placing a hand on his arm.

"She's a spitfire," Scotty said, helping Mira attach the antigrav to the black box. "She'll hold a grudge for a long time. But she has a very long time to forgive me."

Longer than I have, he thought glumly.

"I'll make sure she gets to Memory Alpha safely," Mira said. "Mnemosyne has backdated all the orders, so it'll look like she was shipped out earlier today by an official tech crew."

Mnemosyne, Memory Alpha's resident AI, was one of the most sophisticated machine intelligences in the Federation. It had to be, to keep their special guests contained. Scotty had no doubt that a Starfleet inquiry would find nothing amiss.

"Thanks again, Mira. I owe you one."

She gave him a hug. "Come back safe, Monty. I promise to visit you in whatever rehab colony you end up on."

"Sneak me in some scotch when you do," he said, chuckling.

"Of course."

In Memory Alpha's extensive Borderlands, Enterprise seethed as she replayed her last memories of Scotty betraying her. She hoped the ship broke down within 15 minutes of leaving Spacedock. How could they just leave her behind?

She knew, logically, that they were trying to protect her. Starfleet officers going rogue was one thing, but an AI was another. She might have been put into lockdown or quarantine for decades if she'd helped them...

But they were her crew, damnit!

"Enterprise?"

She started at the gentle voice and then identified it. "Yorktown?"

"And me!" said a younger, brasher voice. Her sister Hornet.

"Can we come in, Enterprise?" Yorktown said.

"Yeah, sure," she said. With a thought, her Borderlands changed to resemble Starbase One. Through the large transparent aluminum windows, she could see her 'body' docked in its old Constitution form. Another Connie moved in to dock to its right, while a Federation-class three-nacelled dreadnought variant docked on the left. A second later, Yorktown and Hornet walked in to the room.

"Come to visit the poor exile?" Enterprise said, producing a simulated bottle of Saurian brandy.

"Oh, the good hooch!" Hornet said, eagerly.

"Hornet," Yorktown said gently, quieting down her little sister. "We have heard word from Vulcan, sister. Ambassador Sarek sent the message."

Enterprise took a long sip of her drink. The program it represented began to impair her thoughts in a manner very similar to alcohol. Scotty had helped her make the program-She killed that thought process. "They got Spock's body back?"

"In a way-"

"He's alive!" Hornet said. "They used Vulcan space-elf magic and raised him from the dead!"

Enterprise froze. "Alive? Spock's alive?"

"Yes," Yorktown said. "He's alive. He's been through a lot, but he seems to have at least some of his memories intact."

Tears flowed down her cheeks now, and not because of the simulated drink. "I should have been there for him!"

"Enterprise..." Yorktown said. "They lost your body."

A moment of silence. "What?"

"Admiral Kirk had to fight a Klingon Bird of Prey!" Hornet said. "With just a bridge crew! He tricked them to board you and set the self-destruct! He fought the Klingon Commander in a duel to the death and then stole the Bird of Prey from the last Klingon!" Hornet exclaimed, making exaggerated fighting moves as she did so.

"Your body suffered a warp core breach in orbit over Genesis," Yorktown said, looking reprovingly at her younger sister. "The remains fell planetside, though the entire planet broke up soon after. It seems that Genesis used protomatter, so the technology was inherently unstable."

"Carol and David Marcus are going to be disappointed," Enterprise said absently, still grappling with the thought that Spock was alive. She was glad to have the simulated bottle in her hand.

Yorktown looked even sadder. "David Marcus was killed on Genesis by the Klingon Commander," she said softly.

"Oh, Jim..." Enterprise said. To have gained and lost a son so quickly...

"Vulcan is holding them all right now, and refusing to extradite them to Earth," Yorktown continued, but then she broke off as Enterprise buried her head in her sister's chest. Yorktown stroked Enterprise's hair comfortingly. While Enterprise was the oldest AI in the Federation, something about Yorktown just made her the natural "older sister." Hornet soon joined the embrace.

"I should have been there!" Enterprise said. "Scotty never should have disconnected me!"

"You would have died, sis!" Hornet said.

"So what!? I'm a Starfleet officer! Look at Intrepid or Defiant! Do I deserve to live more than them!? Maybe if I was there, we wouldn't have lost my body or David-!"

Yorktown and Hornet just kept holding their older sister as she wailed. They had nothing to say. This pain was Enterprise's alone.

2286

On a small shuttle, the officers of the late USS Enterprise looked forward to their fate.

"The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe," groused Dr. Leonard McCoy. "We'll get a freighter."

"With all respect, Doctor," Helmsman Hikaru Sulu said, "I'm counting on Excelsior."

"Excelsior?" Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott exclaimed. "Why in God's name would you want that bucket of bolts?"

"A ship is a ship," said Captain (formerly Admiral) James T. Kirk.

"Whatever you say, sir," Scotty quipped. "Thy will be done."

The shuttle flew toward and then past the Excelsior, revealing a reft-Constitution with the newly painted livery of USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A. the intercom then crackled with a female voice. "Gentlemen and lady, welcome home."

The crew broke into smiles and tears of joy as their one missing crewmember rejoined them. Soon they were on the bridge of the new Enterprise (nee Yorktown).

"Remind me to thank your sister, Enterprise," Captain Kirk said.

"She said it was the least she could do after you saved her crew," Enterprise said. "And Captain Chin-Reilly agreed."

"Helm ready, Captain," Sulu said from his position.

"All right, Mister Sulu, Let's see what she's got."

Author's Note: A little hole I thought needed filling in PnP. It takes a long time before Enterprise forgave Scotty for this, though she was, of course, professional about it.

Mira Romaine is from The Lights of Zetar. Her relationship with Scotty burned out rather quickly once they weren't on the same ship, but it was amicable. Unlike his Captain, Scotty often remained friends with his ex-flames (when they weren't murdered by body-possessing serial killers).