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Shining On The Quay, Epilogue (4/4)
Chris had informed junior officers of extended-duty rosters for more years than he could remember, but he'd never seen one have quite the reaction he was getting from Colt.
“Vulcan? New Vulcan?“ Colt stared blankly at Chris. “You--I--New Vulcan?” Chris couldn't really blame her; no one but a handful of technicians and engineers had been planetside on New Vulcan, much less invited guests of the Vulcan High Council. “I--oh, I knew I should have kept those lecture notes accessible.” She started back toward her desk, then got hold of herself and turned back to Chris. “Did you need me for anything specific, sir, or--I have my notes on Vulcan culture and protocol and I can contact my professors--do you know a general schedule--oh,my god, next week, you said?”
“Breathe, Ensign,” Chris said, and she held on to the side of her desk and did just that. “I'm sure we'll be all but buried in protocol briefings over the next few days. As for a schedule, I believe we'll be accompanying Sarek--”
Chris broke off as she went white as a sheet.
“Sir,” she--well, squeaked. There was unfortunately no other word for it. “I--Sir, I had professors, respected professors, who'd never met a Vulcan of that esteem,” she said once she could breathe again. “And I'm just an ensign.”
Not for much longer, Chris thought, but kept that tidbit to himself. It would be a fast promotion, but Chris was prepared to push it through forcibly if he had to. It shouldn't take that, not once they returned from New Vulcan, but it was always best to be prepared.
There was barely enough time to breathe after the news got out and the resulting chaos snapped Colt back to her usual hyper-efficient self. “I go home and scream into a pillow,” Chris overheard her say as she ran out the door with a friend, on the way to yet another briefing.
“Does it help?” the other ensign asked.
“Not really, but at least I haven't thrown up yet,” Colt replied. Chris decided to leave it alone.
While Chris wasn't surprised that Sarek and the ambassador--Chris still had the slightest mental hiccup in thinking of him as Spock--had insisted that the Enterprise be the ship to transport their small group to New Vulcan, he was a little impressed that they'd managed to pull it off. If he was reading between the lines properly, he thought Jim and their own Spock had more than a little to do with it, too. Chris saved up the apoplectic glares that greeted Jim's message to Fleet command, where he announced in the blandest of tones that of course his flagship would be at the Admiral's disposal. He thought Jim would enjoy hearing about them almost as much as Chris had enjoyed seeing them.
In reality, the delegation was on the Enterprise's schedule, standing ready a full two days before she warped in almost directly from a standoff with Romulan Empire. The command team spent the entire twelve hours they were in spacedock in debriefings, while the rest of the crew cleaned up and replenished, and the delegation to New Vulcan assembled on Earth for the shuttle ride up.
Ensign Colt stood with a packing list on her PADD, reviewing the baggage one last time, though Chris suspected it was more to keep her from exploding from excitement than out of any real need to check for mass and volume compliance.
The trip up to spacedock was smooth and easy, and once they were there everything proceeded with clockwork efficiency. Their bags, with formal dress uniforms and the working blues they'd be spending most of their days in, were whisked off, and they were escorted out to where the Enterprise was airlocked to the facility. Spock met them personally as they were piped aboard.
“With the captain's compliments, if you're not too tired, he's waiting for you on the bridge,” Spock relayed. Chris was fairly certain those words had never crossed Jim Kirk's lips, but he was equally certain the sentiments applied. And he'd have to have been half-dead to miss that. Colt left to make sure all was well with their baggage--god forbid they not have everything she deemed necessary--and Chris started on the familiar walk to the bridge.
“Admiral on deck,” the officer of the day called as Spock stepped back to let Chris precede him, and Chris didn't think he imagined the ripple of excitement that crossed the room.
“As you were,” Chris called quickly, and everything fell back into rhythm of pre-flight prep. Kirk was lounging in the captain's chair, for all intents and purposes doing nothing but carrying on an argument with Lt. Uhura that had the familiar undertones of a much-enjoyed ritual, while acknowledging check-ins from around the ship.
“Good to have you on board, sir,” Kirk said without so much as a ghost of a smirk, and went right back to accepting reports. Spock left to take care of his last-minute scans, and Chris stood there and let it all sink in.
“Bridge to Engineering,” Jim was saying. “Report?”
“All shiny new, Captain,” Mr. Scott said. “I can't believe how much they got done in less than a day. We'll have to break all this in.”
“I'm sure we will, Scotty,” Jim said. “Bridge out.” He stood up and turned to Chris. “She's all yours, Admiral.”
“I--excuse me?” Chris was stuttering, but he thought he might be entitled.
“You don't think I'm taking your flagship out while you're on board, do you?” Jim grinned. “You have the conn, sir.”
Chris shook his head and felt his own mouth quirk up into a smile. “Lieutenant,” he called to Uhura. “Please page Ensign Colt to the bridge.”
“Right away, sir.” Chris heard the call go out as he settled himself in the chair: Ensign Colt to the Bridge; Colt to the Bridge. Before Chris could wonder if she had any idea how to get to there, the doors were opening and a familiar red head appeared.
“Mia,” Chris called. “From what I remember, you've never seen a starship go out of spacedock.” When she shook her head, he added, “Well, now you've got a prime seat.”
“Awesome,” Jim murmured, as he passed behind Chris. “Don't think I don't know this is a ploy to make sure she meets Uhura and they form an alliance that'll--”
“Make sure I really know what's going on up here?” Chris murmured back, never taking his eyes off the view screen.
“Evil,” Kirk muttered, and Chris didn't bother hiding his own smile.
“Ease her out, Mr. Sulu,” Chris ordered, and the engines hummed to life around them as the view outside the window shifted and rolled.
“Free of spacedock, Admiral,” Sulu reported. “Course set for New Vulcan.”
“Excellent,” Chris said, and he was grinning like an idiot but he really couldn't be bothered about it--especially not when Jim grinned back at him, as bright as any ten stars. “Punch it.”
Epilogue
Notes/Thanks
...and general babblings.
Thanks, first: As always,
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without_me and withdiamonds deserve ginormous thanks for going through my drafts and fixing problems and pointing out issues and telling me what doesn't make sense, on top of listening to me whine endlessly about what's in front of me. I say that every time, but double especially for this one, because writing a Big Bang as the first toe-in-the-water of a new fandom is kinda nerve-wracking, OMG. And on that topic, liz_w gets many gold stars for going through and catching my non-Trekisms. If there are any left, they're all my fault; I was writing up to the last second.Special thanks to
deliciousny and cero_ate, who took on art and fanmixing duties for an oddball pairing, but who absolutely nailed what I had in my head. Please go leave them some love at their master posts; I absolutely love what they did. And many thanks to the mods for running a clean, easy challenge, which I know takes tons more effort than appears on the surface. The title comes from the first stanza of the poem Home Is The Sailor, by A. E. Houseman, but I think the whole thing fits what I had in my head:
Home is the sailor, home from sea:
Her far-borne canvas furled
The ship pours shining on the quay
The plunder of the world.
Home is the hunter from the hill:
Fast in the boundless snare
All flesh lies taken at his will
And every fowl of air.
'Tis evening on the moorland free,
The starlit wave is still:
Home is the sailor from the sea
The hunter from the hill.
In conclusion (yes, finally): I blame this whole blasted thing on Bruce Greenwood's voice, because he might have only had 20 lines in the movie, but damn, he sucked me right in.
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