#U.S.S. Yorktown

[chernobog13]

Absolutely phenomenal large scale cutaways I found on Art Station of a Constitution-class refit vessel, the U.S.S. Yorktown, NCC-1717.

The Yorktown was rechristened U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A, and assigned to Captain Kirk and crew at the end of Star Trek lV: The One With The Whales The Voyage Home.

I'm not sure who the artist is (I think Lewis Niven?). Lemme know if you do so that I can properly credit them.

[hazel-of-sodor]

Day 10 A-The Grey Ghost

Day 10 A-Great

Other Stories

Other Days

USCG Enterprise WCV-6 sat outside the Newport Shipyard, fighting off the urge to doze. It was a beautiful day, the sky was clear, with just enough of an ocean breeze to keep her cool. It wasn't often she could truly relax outside of port. Even now that she was in service with the Coast Guard, she almost always had aircraft aloft, patrolling the surrounding waters. She would launch her aircraft soon enough, but for now she was waiting.

The Navy had finally finished her successor. CVN-65, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. Enterprise didn't quite understand the concept, something about radioactive rocks making steam, but those in charge believed it was the future. CVN-65 was not only supposed to be the largest carrier afloat, but the fastest. Enterprise had been shown the stats for the new ship to bear her name, and she had to admit they were impressive.

A horn sounded, and she glanced up as a large bow rounded the corner. The ship that was revealed was nearly half again as long as her, over twice as wide at her widest point, and nearly three times her displacement. She was also brand new.

CVN-65 U.S.S Enterprise, eighth of her name was untested, had never seen combat, not even war games…but WCV-6 had a good feeling about her.

“Hello little sister, I've been ordered to oversee your sea trials.”

“Little sister?” CVN-65 glanced down at the lead tug guiding her curiously. “Aren't I the only member of my class so far?

The tug chuckled and spoke to WCV-6, “We hadn't told her about you yet, we wanted to surprise her.”

Enterprise chuckled, “Of course. CVN-65, has anyone told you the significance of the name you have been christened with?”

“The name Enterprise is one of the United States longest legacys,” CVN-65 recited dutifully, “from the first ship to bear the name serving in the revolutionary war,  to the latest and most famous of the line, the recently retired Yorktown class U.S.S. Enterprise CV-6, which served with distinction in the Pacific theater of the Second World War, becoming the most decorated American vessel of the war.”

The new supercarrier tilted her head curiously at the smaller carrier. “If it's not rude, may I ask what class you are? I don't recognize it, but you're oddly familiar…”

The tugboats and WCV-6 chuckled. “I've been refit since my Navy days,” the Carrier explained, “I am a Yorktown class.”

CVN-65’s eyes shot wide, “But that means…”

A whistle sounded and her Coast Guard Flag was lowered and replaced with the Flag of the United States Navy.

The Carrier smirked, “I was transferred, not retired.” She corrected, “and I’ve been temporarily given back to oversee your Trials. For the duration of your trials, I am once again, CV-6 U.S.S. Enterprise.”

[lonestarflight]

"The Apollo 8 crew stands in the doorway of a recovery helicopter after arriving aboard U.S.S. YORKTOWN, recovery vessel for the historic initial human lunar orbital mission. In left foreground is astronaut Frank Borman, Mission Commander. Behind Borman is astronaut James A. Lovell Jr., Command Module pilot; and on the right is astronaut William A. Anders, Lunar Module pilot. Apollo 8 splashed down at 10:51 a.m. (EST), December 27, 1968, in the central Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,000 miles south-southwest of Hawaii."

Date: December 27, 1968

NASA ID: S68-56326, S69-15737

Internet Archives: GPN-2000-001504

[thestellarcartographer]

The finished commission of the main shuttle-bay on a Jamestown-class carrier starship, completed for Endeavour Gaming.

The shuttlebay has two wings of Valkyrie fighters ready to launch at a moments notice, which are ferried from two hanger decks by moving platforms.

There are also four Danube-class Runabouts which can be moved to ancillery flight decks through the large doors that seperate the bays. Supporting them is a heavier-duty 'Argo'-type shuttle, able to ferry larger cargo loads or vehicle support to a planetary surface.

Connecting the hanger decks is a walk-way above the 'Argo'-type shuttle's landing zone, and the rear cargo-holding area, which allows crew to oversee the shuttle-bay, and cross the space easily.

Finally, at the rear of the bay, the main doors into the ship's saucer section; usually the first thing visitors or new crew will see on disembarking their shuttles. Displayed across the wall are the different patches for the ship, including the MACO division, the original Yorktown-badge before the ship was refitted, the refit badge, and the fleet badge to which the ship belongs.

I'm very pleased with how the enviroment turned out, obviously taking a lot of design cues from Star Trek Online and shuttlebays seen in Lower Decks aboard the U.S.S. Cerritos.

[doughmansland70]

Deck crew. U.S.S. Yorktown. 1943

[brookrose-xx]

Star Trek: The Predicament About Demons

by Vulcan_Avenger_27

CHAPTERS: 23 / 23

Fandom(s): Star Trek: Alternate Original Series, The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (2000)

Warnings: Major Character Death; Graphic Depictions of Violence and Gore; references to suicide attempt

Main Pairing: Leonard “Bones” McCoy/James T. Kirk

References: Supernatural (TV series), Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

After having left his old life behind, immortal Leonard McCoy is now the Chief Medical Officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. He has come to like this new life of his when he is confronted with an old friend of his; a close friend whom he thought died many years ago. With her return into Leonard’s life, she warns him of the return of a former devilish leader by the name of Le Valliant.

With this knowledge, they come to the realization that Valliant will be after his daughter Joanna, as she has inherited unspeakable power from her father. Now racing against the clock to get from Starbase Yorktown to Earth, Leonard must save his daughter from a danger not known to anyone but he and his friends alone. Will they make it in time to stop Le Valliant from getting to Joanna? From gaining unlimited power?

Available on Ao3, Wattpad, & Quotev

[starfleetsxvulcan]

Uhura had heard the distress call first as the Enterprise cruised in warp.

It played on repeat in her ear and into the void for any assistance for a vessel that identified itself as the Hrai Yan. Details of what the ship was...non-hostile, unequipped for battle engagement being pursued, attacked, boarded by a relentless and violent foe.

Eyes slightly wider at what she was hearing, she turned in her chair, springing to her feet. Captain James T. Kirk was perched in his chair at the center of the Bridge, and his second in command Vulcan science officer was standing not far off, sharp attention on his PADD. It was supposed to be a routine mission of star-charting, nothing too exciting, at least, not until the planned rendezvous with the U.S.S Yorktown. The moment the lieutenant stood however, Kirk's eyes snapped to her, sitting up straighter immediately. He knew that look, something was wrong out there.

'...Uhura?' The gentle prompting caused Spock to shift his focus, an ear twitching, turning his head to glance between the Captain and then Uhura, a brow rising as he, too, noticed the expression she wore. Something she heard had shook her up, which was not the easiest thing to do. 'What is it?'

Before anything could even begin to be explained, the Enterprise was suddenly thrown out of her warp, trajectory going haywire as the flagship tumbled, causing some on the Bridge to fall to the floor as others hung onto their stations or the railings. Spock found himself catching a hold of Uhura, who almost went flying, pulling her close to him in an attempt to fight for balance for both of them as his free hand latched onto the Captain's chair.

Sulu worked to compensate at the helm, bringing her to a slow crawl in a matter of moments after the harsh jolt. Jim hit the communications as he stared out into the dark vastness that was sprinkled with stars as if searching for a culprit. 'Scotty, what happened? Why have we fallen out of warp?'

'...Sir, I cannot tell ya why but we've been boarded! They locked onta' us from light-years away!'

Uhura and Spock exchanged looks.

She could only wonder...?

'Red Alert!' Came the instant demand from Kirk, the alarm sounding out, red lights flashing. Just then, waves of reports from the lower decks were coming in. In a lab, two strangers had materialized. One was fighting for life against the other who seemed bent on extinguishing it. No order had to be given as Spock was suddenly moving towards the lift...his unit, his team was at risk. He wasn't having that.

Vulcans were quite speedy.

It didn't take long for Spock to be running down the pin-pointed deck towards the suspected lab. Both Drake and Daniels of Security hot on his trail, weapons drawn. Upon coming to the shut doors the harrowing sound of the disrupter being fired echoed out followed by the shouts and screams of the crew members who were still stuck in there with the unexpected guests, witnessing the horror first hand. 'Follow my lead!' The blue-shirt commanded, a slight glower had formed on his features before he pulled out his own phaser, setting it to stun, then he gave a signal and the entrance was opened wide.

There was no hesitation at the sight that greeted both him and the fellow red-shirts. Spock aimed and fired, the stun beam hitting its mark right before the unwelcome attacker could pull his own trigger, soon hitting the floor with a thud. The half-vulcan merely hopped over the body as the rest of the security detail charged in, his attention was now on Soji who was bleeding profusely-still managing to stand of all things-from her disruptor wound in her chest. Steady arms grabbed a hold of her, keeping her upright as her blood began to stain against his uniform. '...Can you hear me?' Came an oddly calm, yet tense voice. 'You are safe, I will get you help. Try to stay awake.'

A hand flipped open a device with a beep.

'Spock to Sickbay.'

'Spock!' A loud bark of a reply from another came through, one that sounded quite alarmed. 'Are you alright? What the hell is going on down there?'

'This is a matter of life and death, Doctor. Be ready, I am bringing you a patient.'

'Spock-!'

The now bloodied-Vulcan had thrown his closed communicator device aside, hoisting Soji up into his arms as gently as he could bridal style, paying the best mind to the gaping wound. 'I repeat, stay awake.' He stated to her, almost commanding like it was that of an order to be obeyed, before he began to quickly move from the lab, into the deck hall, and towards the lift.

Although his expression remained steeled over, there was a light in his dark eyes, a speck maybe. A dot of not only determination but concern.

Emergency Transport - AU - Open Starter

Today was not going great.

The ship pursuing theirs was fast, nimble, and absurdly well-armed. Their ship wasn't designed for any sort of open combat, it wasn't fast, not like their pursuers' was. Their only saving grace was that their pursuers clearly wanted to take them alive if possible.

Why?

Neither of them knew and, honestly, they weren't eager to ask.

Their engines were out, their solar sails blown to shreds, the hull was breached, and they were utterly entangled in grappling lines. They were like a moth caught by a spider, paralyzed and being rapidly cocooned.

Dahj sent out a distress call while Soji grabbed the nearest weapon-adjacent thing she could find. They didn't carry phasers, disruptors, nothing projectile at all--they weren't warriors. They had orchids and some star-charts. There was a large spanner in the first toolkit Soji opened. That was probably the closest thing they had to an honest-to-god weapon and she immediately snatched it up. The floor lurched and Soji went to stand alongside the sealed doors to the bridge.

The ship lurched again, rocked violently and nearly threw both of them to the ground. There was a hideous squeal of tearing metal as part of the hull was sheered free. They could feel the deck plating shake as a dozen--oh, god a dozen--boots came thundering onboard. They were being boarded and were venting all their air into space.

Soji moved to the controls by the doors and tried to drop the emergency bulkheads, behind her Dahj frantically typed commands into the main computer, tried to get help, to raise shields, anything. Alarms were going off everywhere and the boots were getting closer.

Dahj found someone on long range. The scanners on this ship far outstripped the military vessel attacking them, they probably outstripped the vessel they'd detected. But even if they were the only ones who knew, they found them. Someone was out there in the black.

Whoever they were, they were too far out to detect more than their warp signature, even with the Hrai Yan's impressive scanners. They were definitely too far out to save them before the compartment was breached and they were captured. The ship rocked again as another piece of hull was sheered free. The power flickered off and came back on--they could use the trajector to get there, but they only had a few seconds.

The doors groaned as the boarding party arrived on the other side of them. There was a heavy thunk and something jammed between the doors, into the seal. They were forced open just as Dahj was entering the final coordinates. As the seal parted, the air began to vent out in a violent torrent. Everything that wasn't fixed down was thrown into chaos as the chamber decompressed.

Soji managed to kill the first one of their assailants who came through the door--her spanner shattered his ev-helmet and caved his skull. He was sucked back into the vacuum with their charts, their orchids, their air.

The next man through the door struck her before she could draw back and ready her weapon again. His pry-bar hit her hard, cracked against her ribs with all the force he could muster, if there had been a bit more air she'd have cried out as she reeled back. He caught her by the wrist, twisted her arm to try and get the spanner from her-- There was a sudden, sickening lurch as the trajector hooked both her and her attacker and threw both of them through space.

It wasn't a massive jump, not by the trajector's standards, only a few lightyears. Unfortunately, with the ship's power fluctuating, it was more of a hail-mary than an actual, targeted attempt. Dahj had aimed for their bridge but they were moving at warp and the Hrai Yan was in pieces when she locked on.

Dahj missed.

Soji and her black clad assailant materialized on a lower deck, but thankfully didn't materialize inside anything. They were traveling with inertia opposite of the ship they'd just appeared in which, at warp, was a huge problem. The ship they'd landed in had its warp bubble shattered instantly and fell out of warp into a tumble. It slid on all three axis like tires losing traction on ice. The crew in the room were thrown to the ground, which at least put them out of harms way as Soji and her black-clad attacker solidified mid-air.

They were moving fast and crashed through a glass room partition--on the other side was a heavy metal table, bolted down, and Soji's back hit right against the edge. What air was left in Soji's lungs was forced out on impact--her vision spotted over and she had no time to draw a breath at all. She broke her assailant's fall, absorbing his impact against the table, and spared him the need to recover. He got his feet under him and Soji immediately had ev-gloved hands around her neck, crushing her with all the force they could muster.

They struggled violently--he dug fingers into her throat, tried to suffocate her or block the blood to her brain. Soji thrashed but couldn't land a blow--she gripped at the arms holding her but the suit was reinforced with an energy field. Even her strength couldn't crush his wrists and force him to let go. She panicked, gaping like a fish out of water, her vision going dark as the seconds passed, until she grabbed the edge of the table. She gripped it hard, hauled them off of it and, in the process, swept a wide array of glass and machinery from the tabletop.

A science lab?

Soji didn't have a lot of time to figure that out, occupied as she was. When they tumbled to the ground, Soji was finally able to find purchase, to brace herself against something. The first moment she could, she kicked her assailant square in the chest. His suit's reinforcements flashed as she did, prevented her from putting her foot through his sternum, but he couldn't hold on to her. He was thrown back and hit the far wall hard enough to dent the bulkhead.

She sucked down a deep, gasping breath as his hands came free and struggled to her feet. Her vision was floating, she was lightheaded from the extended lack of air-- She didn't know where her weapon was--well, her tool--she needed something but what--

Her attacker recovered while she was still trying to catch her breath. He didn't hesitate and the moment he had his feet under him, he pulled his disruptor and fired. The energy shot hit Soji in the stomach like a physical blow. It tore straight through her and struck the wall behind her. The shot scorched the bulkhead black as it burst apart into a spray of green sparks.

Soji twisted, swayed with the impact, but ultimately remained standing. Her mouth hung open in some combination of mute shock and desperate gaping for air. Everything seemed to stop in that moment.

Absently, she remembered that you should put pressure on stomach wounds until help arrives. She--that was important--her hand felt odd, like it wasn't her own, but she moved it and tried to put pressure on the wound.

But she couldn't...there was a hole. All her fingers found was a vacant space, a space larger than the span of her hand. There was nothing there to put pressure on.

There was so much blood.

The disruptor whined as it charged a second shot and Soji stumbled. It was about then that the doors to the lab opened--

[newloverofbeauty]

Aboard U.S.S. Yorktown,   (c.1943)

[strawwritesfic]

Kelvin!Jim Kirk x Female!Old Flame!Reader: Starship in a Bottle

Summary: Life is fragile. Life is beautiful. Life can be smashed to pieces in the blink of an eye. Such smashing does not require that what is left will not still be fragile and beautiful itself.

Request: A one shot with the romantic interest being any male character from the Star Trek Kelvin Universe.

Rating/Warnings/Tags: T (teenage pregnancy; discussion of abortion; sexual references; foul language; implied Spock/Uhura; implied Hikaru/Ben; alive!Pavel Chekov; Five Year Mission; post-Star Trek Beyond; Vulcan OC; Vulcan OC & Reader Friendship; OC child of a canon character; Commander!Reader; ship designer!Reader; reference to Utopia Planitia; many call forwards to places, species, and objects introduced in The Next Generation and beyond; reference to And the Children Shall Lead)

Notes: This is, hands down, the thing I’ve written that I’m most proud of. I love Star Trek Beyond. I love Kirk. I loved cramming as many references as I could to the series as a whole into this. This one shot is a labor of love and the first one shot for the series I wrote after I had seen every single live action Star Trek episode up to that point. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

It’s about 11,000 words. You have been warned!

Starship in a Bottle

“This is a disaster!”

Your voice, shrill as it had ever been, echoed throughout the empty workstation. Thankfully there weren’t many people loitering there to view what remained of the U.S.S. Franklin, because you sounded quite deranged. But why should you not? What floated in the spacedock, just beyond the four-inch-thick transparent aluminum, could be described as nothing but a disaster.

“I fail to see the logic in shouting the obvious,” said your companion. He was dark-haired and dark-skinned, with pointy ears and a placid demeanor. “If there was not a disaster to fix, you would not have been called out to Starbase Yorktown to begin with.

You shot Tanir a dirty look. Of course, what with him being Vulcan, he merely returned your venom with a blank stare.

“This is not the Enterprise,” you said.

“No. I should think the ship’s registry makes that clear.”

“We were called away from Utopia Planitia to refit the Enterprise.”

“Another accurate statement. Three in a row, Commander. Just one more, and you’ll reach a new record.”

Vulcans. You admired Tanir. Really, you did. Sometimes, though, you wished your closest friend and coworker were an Andorian or a Tellarite, at least so you could find a little variety in the abuse you so constantly endured by those among your staff.

“How can you be so calm about this?” you asked. “You gave up shore leave on New Vulcan for the opportunity to work on this one ship, and it’s not even the ship we were led to believe it would be!”

“Perhaps there is a good reason for the switch. I see a group approaching. Let us hope they will provide us with an explanation.”

You spotted the flash of the opening door reflected in the aluminum yourself and turned to greet the coming party. Pissed as you were to discover that you’d been lured across the quadrant on false pretenses, you knew better than to yell at Commodore Paris over it. Tanir would never let you live down such bad behavior.

It was not the commodore headed over to greet you, however. It was instead a group of four: a short, wiry man in the same red uniform as yours, with dark hair and pale skin; a woman with stark white hair and skin whose species you could not identify; a tall, pale Vulcan in Science Blue, and—

“You!”

You and Jim Kirk recognized each other at the exact same moment. His Vulcan raised a single dark brow at the sudden chorus.

“What are you doing here?” Jim demanded.

“Fixing your ship,” you answered coolly.

“Like hell you are. I’m not letting you get anywhere near my ship!”

“What do you mean, your ship? Did you put this hunk of junk here so I couldn’t even see the Enterprise?”

“Be careful what you call a piece of junk. That ‘junk’ is my home!” said the woman. She looked ready to lunge at you over the insult, but the man in red held her back with a hand to her shoulder.

“Easy there, Jayla. She has no way of knowing that,” he said in a Scottish accent.

“Perhaps, then, she should learn to hold her tongue.”

“An excellent suggestion,” said Jim. “I don’t know what she’s doing here anyway. Commodore Paris said the best from Utopia Planitia was being brought in for the refit.”

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Captain, but Commander [L Name] is the best Utopia Planitia has to offer. That is why she is here,” Tanir said.

You would have offered him thanks right then, but knew doing so would likely only prompt him to say something derogatory to make up the compliment.

Such praise—coming from the mouth of a race not often known to lie—seemed to draw Jim up short. Then he said one word: “No.”

“No?” Tanir echoed curiously.

“No. You can work on the ship. I don’t care who else does. Just not her.”

“Captain,” said the other Vulcan, “to dismiss Commander [L Name] would be a grievous error. Only she can do what you want done for the ship in the time frame required of her. If you had read her research into—”

“The point, Spock!”

Spock blinked before smoothly continuing, “It would be foolish to allow your personal feelings to get in the way of allowing someone of her talents to prepare the new Enterprise.

Scowling, Jim looked from Spock’s face, to Tanir’s, to yours.

“The sooner we complete the job, the sooner you can continue your mission. Unless you are attempting this delay because you would prefer not to go on with your assignment?” said Tanir.

Jim did not look happy about it, but struggling under the pressure of two Vulcans at once was something you understood well was difficult not to cave under.

“Fine!” he snapped at last, spinning on his heel. “But I want regular updates on your progress.”

He offered no farewell before leaving the room. Spock watched him go before turning his attention to you and Tanir.

“I will allow Jayla and Mr. Scott to explain the assignment. Thank you for coming out to work on this for us. Mr. Tanir. Commander [L Name]. Live long and prosper.”

You knew Tanir well enough to know that his and Spock’s exchange of the Vulcan Salute thrilled him more than he let on. Spock was a big name among the remaining Vulcans—especially since the other Spock’s passing—and you wondered if the chance of meeting him had been part of the allure of Yorktown for Tanir to begin with. Not that you had any room to needle your engineer about his hero worship. Spock’s name drop of the Enterprise’s engineer had you seeing stars yourself.

Mr. Scott was too busy shaking his head to notice your staring, thankfully. “Wonder what’s got into the captain. I haven’t seen him this upset since the incident with Kahn.”

“Mr. Scott. As in Montgomery Scott?” you asked in awe. Well, making sure of that was easier than explaining why Jim was acting as though an exocomp had crawled up his butt.

“Yes?” Mr. Scott said.

“I can’t believe I’m meeting you! After Admiral Archer got you exiled I thought I’d never get the chance!” Forget the screaming from earlier; your squealing over meeting this man made you sound far more deranged. “I’ve kept up with all your research. The transwarp beaming technique—I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I appreciate you saying that. You’ve done a lot of impressive stuff yourself. I particularly found the—”

“Montgomery Scottie. Is there a reason you asked me to come along with you to see my home?” Jaylah interrupted.

Mr. Scott smiled. “Oh. Right. Best we move onto the instructions.”

“That would be ideal. We are in something of a time crunch as it is,” said Tanir.

“Well, you already know the basics.” Mr. Scott gestured at the ship floating nearby. “We need a new Enterprise.”

You and Tanir glanced at one another.

“Okay,” you said slowly. “Where is the Enterprise?”

“Gone,” said Jaylah.

“Aye. It sort of got…blasted into a million tiny smithereens out in deep space,” Mr. Scott admitted.

“Wh—” Just like Jaylah before, you required holding back to prevent yourself from lunging at him. Tanir did so as discreetly as he could.

“We were not informed that this was the case. Of course we will do our best to provide a new ship that meets your qualifications,” he said, “but why is the U.S.S. Franklin here in the Enterprise’s stead?”

“Well, that old ship did do us a lot of favors. What we were hoping was, with your permission of course,” Mr. Scott said to Jaylah, “that you could use some of this ship to build the new one.”

Her amber eyes lit up. “So it will get to fly again?”

“That’s what we hope.”

“That would be wonderful Montgomery Scottie. Please do it. Then, once I’m done at the Academy, I can come home again.”

Was anyone going to ask you how you felt about this task? No. Of course not. Jaylah’s acceptance was enough apparently, even though she wouldn’t have anything to do with the construction or deconstruction of either ship. After several seconds of her and Mr. Scott beaming over their plan, the latter held his hand out toward you.

“We’ll leave it to you, then,” he said.

Tanir prevented you from saying what you were thinking by stepping forward to shake Mr. Scott’s hand himself. “We will ensure your captain is regularly updated, as he requested.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to not shake Mr. Scott’s hand yourself, no matter how upset you were about his and Jim’s cockamamie plan to combine a brand new ship with elements of a dinosaur from the Federation’s birth.

He and Jaylah left immediately after. Before she left, she called out a cheerful “goodbye!” as though she hadn’t just given permission for you to do the impossible.

“If I may say so, you handled that remarkably well,” Tanir observed.

You didn’t answer. There wasn’t enough time to list all the reasons he was wrong. Commodore Paris wanted this refit done impossibly quickly, and now you had even more work ahead of you than originally anticipated. Trying to put Jim out of your mind (never an easy task), you went to your station to begin your designs.

******

Days and nights passed quickly in the secluded silence of your workshop. Things did not proceed as planned. Blueprint after blueprint found itself tossed unceremoniously into the database trash bin; you frequently wished that you could delete yourself along with it. Normally you didn’t have to spend the better part of week on nothing but a basic outline…but normally you already had access to what was required for a ship.

Jim always had to make things difficult, didn’t he? All the parts for a new Constitution-class could be put together easily. That just wasn’t good enough for him; he had to have some Frankenstein’s monster of a ship that included Freedom-class parts, too, and those hadn’t been in use for ages. Maybe a ship remained in a junkyard somewhere, but you doubted it.

The Franklin messed things up for its own stripping, too. Spacedocks just weren’t made with old ships like that in mind, meaning Tanir had to supervise a staff to manually pull the antique apart. Since you still didn’t know just how you were going to incorporate the old ship into the new, you needed everything as intact as possible. What had begun as a quick assignment you’d been eager to tackle was turning into an endless slog you’d just as soon pass to one of the Andorians always vying for your position.

“This is ridiculous!” you said as your seventh simulation for the day ended with the new Enterprise shaking itself into pieces less than a light-year away from its starting point.

“Mom.”

A hand tugged at the sleeve of your uniform. Slowly, you lifted your head from where it had fallen onto your arms to see a boy, grinning and muss-haired, gazing at you through his huge blue eyes.

“What is it, Emmett?” you asked. “Need help on a homework problem?”

“No. I finished that an hour ago. Are we going to eat soon?”

Poor Emmett. Just twelve years old and already he knew better than to interrupt you at work, even when you were hours past a reasonable quitting time and he’d likely been sitting there doing extra homework just to pass the time. You pressed a guilty kiss to the skin just beneath his thick, brown hair.

“Sorry, baby. I got caught up again, didn’t I?"

He nodded.

"How about I give you some credits and you go get us something you like for dinner? As soon as you get back, I’ll quit, and we’ll go home to eat.”

“Okay!”

Any boy his age would be eager to run through the streets of Yorktown unsupervised. You felt a little bad about letting him do so, but what harm could he get into? It was still a Federation starbase. Once you handed over the credits, Emmett shot off like a phaser beam toward the exit. Well, he’d been cooped up in there with you for most of the evening. Even worse, Tanir had left to give Jim the update he demanded, leaving your son without his favorite person in the galaxy to distract him.

Knowing that Emmett wouldn’t take long to return with food, you went back to your station. Your frustration level rose with every failed simulation. Tanir could remind you how proud you’d be of the work once you finished as much as he wanted; it didn’t prevent you from resenting just how much of a miracle Mr. Scott and Jaylah and Jim were asking you to perform—especially since the last clearly didn’t think you had it in you.

“Excuse me, Commander.”

“Think of the devil,” you said, still poking around at the new blank screen. “Not that your resemblance to the devil is all that extreme. How’d the meeting go? Did Jim convince you that you could do a better job than me yet?”

“No. But I tried.”

Thank goodness that you’d sent your son away, because your reaction to hearing Jim’s voice in your workspace was to let out a colorful Tellarite swear—among other reasons you were relieved Emmett was gone, of course. Scowling, you turned on your stool to face the door, where, sure enough, Tanir stood with Jim beside him.

“He refused to take the update from me, on the grounds that I am not the one with the most immediate knowledge of how the refit fares,” Tanir said.

“Oh, so now you’re not even going to let my staff do their jobs? Don’t you have better things to do than harass me in person?” you demanded of Jim.

“Not until you fix my ship,” he said.

To emphasize that he had no intention of leaving without getting what he’d come for, he pulled out the stool on the other side of your table and plopped right into it. His eyes focused directly on yours. You could feel yourself falling into them, head over heels…

“Commander.”

Tanir saved you from embarrassing yourself further with his interruption. Startled, you cleared your throat and turned back to him. Your cheeks burned. Hopefully keeping your face directed away from Jim’s would prevent him from noticing.

“Yes, Mr. Tanir?” you asked.

“I believe that when I left you to give Captain Kirk an update, you had company. May I inquire as to where your company went?”

You swore again, this time in Andorian. “I don’t have time to deal with you right now,” you shot at Jim, already bustling to get your things together so you could leave.

“That is all right, Commander. You speak with the captain. He has made it quite clear that he will not receive the information from anyone else. I will ensure that your guest makes it to your quarters safely.”

When you nodded, it was very reluctantly. Staying to speak with Jim was not what you considered an ideal situation. Better than the one Tanir had barely prevented, however. Emmett would be returning with dinner any minute.

“Then, Captain Kirk, I bid you farewell.”

Tanir did not suggest that Jim live well or prosper before he left. His obvious frustration at not being allowed to do his job distracted you effectively enough that you almost forgot to shout, “Tell him I’ll be there right away! Just as soon as I’m done with this last problem!”

One wave of the hand without turning told you Tanir heard. You could breathe again knowing that Emmett would not come running in at the most inopportune time available. Perhaps bringing him along with you to Yorktown had been a mistake. After all, you had been well aware Jim would be there, too, long before you boarded your shuttle there.

“Is that really what you think of me?”

Jim, of course, had not left with Tanir. He remained precisely where you’d left him: a continuous pain in your ass. The way his lips curled into a sardonic smile caused a long-buried, quavering feeling to unfurl inside your stomach. Thirty looked good on him. Or was that the Starfleet uniform? Before you could give this disturbing thought the attention it deserved, the man lifted himself from his stool just enough to reach forward and tap you on the forehead.

“Hey. Earth to [Name]. You still in there?”

Perhaps you didn’t need to swat his hand away so forcefully. Perhaps you did. It was all up to interpretation, and your interpretation was that Jim had a lot of nerve touching you like that after all these years.

“Yes, Jim, I’m still here,” you said, “and I’m still wondering why you sent away my second in command when he is perfectly capable of giving you the information you want. Which is why, yes, I think you’re a problem.”

“Well, that should be nothing new. I’ve always been a bit of a problem, haven’t I?”

“Do you have to look so pleased with yourself? Being captain of a starship hasn’t changed you one bit.”

“Because Starfleet’s done such a perfect job of ironing out all your imperfections.”

“What are you doing here?” you asked. “I really have somewhere to be.”

“Got a date?”

“Yes. I do.”

One blink set his face to a completely foreign blank mask. “Oh. Well, I guess I shouldn’t keep you then.”

“That would be…nice.” It would—but that didn’t stop your words from coming out confused. All this hassle for him to let you go just like that?

“Right. So, how are things going for the ship? Are you making progress?”

“We’re making progress with the disassembly of the U.S.S. Franklin,” you allowed.

“But how’s the Enterprise?”

Again, all of this was something that Tanir could have explained to him—or Mr. Scott or Jaylah, both of whom spent most mornings observing your work. “That’s a little more complicated.”

Jim scoffed.

“Something funny?”

“No. Nothing’s funny at all. I just knew I shouldn’t have let you continue the work.”

“Because I haven’t been able to combine two ships from vastly different eras in a matter of four days?”

Shaking his head, he got up. “No. Because you can’t see things through. You never have, and you never will.”

“That’s not true!”

Why did it matter to you? What James Tiberius Kirk thought of you hadn’t mattered to you since you were sixteen years old. Just because he was handsome—just because he was successful—just because he’d managed to convince an entire crew that he was something special didn’t mean that you, too, needed to concern yourself with your reputation in his eyes.

But if any of that were true, why did it hurt so much when he looked back just long enough to say, “You’ve never seen anything through for me”?

******

Trust Jim to barge back into things the minute you made a lick of progress on his ship. You had not heard from him once in the two weeks since he’d accused you of having no ability to follow through. Mr. Scott probably relayed any relevant information to him after his and Jaylah’s daily visits, and not seeing Jim suited you just fine. Having to listen to more of his smug, veiled references to your shared past did nothing to help your already sky-high stress levels. You had better ways to spend your free time than hashing out old arguments with your ex.

First dinner, now homework. What was the man going to pull you away from next? Your frustration must have shown plain on your face as Yorktown’s artificial sunset beamed across it. All manner of sentient beings hastily stepped out of your way like you were a Klingon on a warpath. If only such an expression could cow Jim into leaving you alone—but you already knew from experience your anger would only delight him. He obviously wanted you angry, or else he wouldn’t have insisted on a personal visit when he could just as easily have gone straight to your lab himself.

When you arrived at his quarters, no sounds issued from within. A parade of unwanted memories flashed through your eye. You shook your head to clear it of them. No, if Jim were in bed with an Orion or a Caitian or a Kelpien, there would have been a lot more noise. It was with great trepidation all the same that you pressed the buzzer beside the silver door.

“Enter,” called a familiar voice.

This did not exactly unclench the muscles in your stomach. Terrified of what you might see in the room beyond, you slapped a hand over your eyes before you stepped over the threshold.

“Is there a reason you’ve covered your eyes like that?” asked a new voice, this one wholly unknown and with a strong Southern accent. More surprisingly, the voice belonged to a man.

Removing your hand revealed a completely normal sitting area. It matched the one in your own quarters, all the way down to the low glass coffee table and a sleek black couch. Two men sat on the last: Jim and an older white man with thick brown hair and eyebrows to match.

“Oh, hello,” you said a little awkwardly. “I didn’t realize Jim would have company.”

“But you clearly expected him to. Don’t worry. All the times I’ve seen him naked have been purely medical in nature.”

“Dr. McCoy here is my ship’s doctor,” Jim explained.

“Much to my everlasting chagrin,” said Dr. McCoy.

“Bones, this is Commander [F Name] [L Name]. She’s…overseeing the building of the new Enterprise.”

“Please to meet you.” He grasped your hand briefly, stood, and looked right at Jim. “Well, seeing as you have a visitor much prettier than I am, I think I’ll take my leave. Goodnight, Jim. Commander.”

Neither of you protested his going. Jim would probably have insisted on you giving your update in front of both of them if Dr. McCoy didn’t vacate the premises himself. Normally you wouldn’t have minded an audience, but considering what aspersions Jim would probably cast on your work, you’d have preferred to present your ideas alone. Even after Dr. McCoy exited, though, Jim didn’t say anything. Not for a long time.

“How was your date?” he asked at last.

Needless to say, you had not expected that question. “What are you talking about?”

“Your date. The one you said you had last time you and I talked. How’d it go?”

“Oh! Oh, that.” Not the kind of date he thought it was, but all the better for you. “It went fine. Thank you for asking.”

Again, Jim said nothing. His eyes wandered away from your face. You held your breath. What on earth was going on in that man’s head? This was a puzzle you didn’t have the time to ponder. A prepubescent boy eagerly awaited your return. Whatever was bothering Jim, he would have to work through it on his own.

“Look, are we going to get started on the Q and A or what?” you asked.

He answered with a question of his own: “Do you want to take a walk?”

“A walk?”

“Yeah. A walk. I can’t stand sitting in here one more minute. Can you give me your update while we walk instead?”

Well, that did sound a little more like the Jim you knew. Iowa didn’t provide a lot in the way of distraction for a maladjusted guy like him, so there had been plenty of road trips (mostly of the unsupervised variety) made just to occupy him.

His return to something resembling normalcy forced your hand. A single nod indicted your acquiescence. He stood, then motioned for you follow him back out onto the walk. All of the artificial sunlight had vanished by then, leaving the both of you underneath a transparent roof full of unfamiliar stars.

Not a word passed between you as you walked along. A few people recognized Jim and called out greetings to him. Each of these he acknowledged with a smile and a quiet “hello.” To you he said nothing at all. It occurred to you that you would have to be the one to begin if you wanted to get back to your quarters anytime soon.

“I’m sure Mr. Scott told you we’ve finally got a working model of the new ship,” you said. Jim continued walking without so much as glancing at you. “We’re not going to be able to use much of the Franklin. A few of her noncritical systems can be installed—you can keep the music player, for instance—but I’m afraid that, other than that, the best we can do is melt down the Franklin’s hull and combine what’s left with the alloy for the new Enterprise.”

Still his eyes did not move toward you. They moved downward to his boots instead. This forced you to look at him in profile longer than you would have liked. There really wasn’t any angle he wasn’t beautiful from, which wasn’t fair. All those stunts you’d pulled together as kids should have aged him just as quickly as they had you.

At last, Jim chuckled. “I bet Jaylah loved hearing that you want to melt down her home.”

“She didn’t. But she’s an exceptionally smart woman. I let her tinker around with my program for a bit, and she agrees that this is the only way we can properly integrate two ships of such vastly different time periods. Now Jaylah’s just glad we’re not sending the Franklin to a junkyard somewhere she’ll never see any of it again.”

You’d reached a swell in the pathway. Below, on another tier of the tangle of paths that made up the station, sat a fountain spewing silvery wet sparks into the air. Here Jim stopped, pulled away from the crowd, and leaned forward against the metal railing. Was he even listening to you? He never really had, but why ask for an update that night of all nights if he didn’t want to hear it?

“Jim, if I’m boring you, we can always do this another time.”

“Hm? What? No. No, sorry.” He took a deep breath, fixing you once more with his beautiful eyes as you came to stand beside him. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“You wanted to tell me you don’t care where we are in the process of building your ship?”

“No. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. For what I said the other day, about you not having any follow through. Clearly that’s not true. I was thinking about something that happened, what? Thirteen years ago? I was out of line.”

All you did was stare at him—not only because he remained just as handsome as he had been those thirteen years ago (maybe even more so), but also because of what he was saying. An apology? Coming out of his mouth?

“I really surprised with that one, didn’t I?” He looked delighted with himself.

“Shut up,” you said. “I’ve just never heard you say that you’re sorry to anyone, except maybe Sam.”

“We’ve both done some growing since we last saw each other, huh? Well, maybe you didn’t need the growing. You always knew what you were doing.”

“I was sixteen and scared. I still had a lot of growing up to do myself.”

“Still, you made the right choice. We wouldn’t be the people we are today if you hadn’t, and I like who I am a hell of a lot more than who I was. So, thank you. Maybe it’s time to let bygones be bygones.”

Every inch of your being screamed for you not to shake the hand he offered you. Jim was not above deceit or temper—not to mention that he was completely wrong about everything. But in the end, you did take his hand and say:

“I’d like that. Does this mean I can finish my work on the Enterprise without further interference?”

“Yeah, yeah. Spock was right all along. Like usual,” Jim said with a rueful grin.

“About what?”

“About how I shouldn’t let personal feelings interfere with the plans for our ship.”

Together, you both fell silent once more. It was almost a comfortable silence—like the kind you used to spend together in rural Iowa, gazing up at different stars and doing your best not to think about what awaited either of you when you finally sneaked back to your respective homes. Almost. Unfortunately, all those years without Jim there stretched between you too loudly to allow you much comfort.

“Does he know?” you asked. “Mr. Spock?”

Jim shook his head. “No. I haven’t told a soul. You?”

“No, I—”

“Mom!”

One word. One word was all it took to set ice down your spine. One word was all it took to get you spinning away from your view of the fountain. One word had Jim looking over to see the exact same thing you did at the exact same time: Emmett, beaming, racing through the throng of evening pedestrians and right toward you.

“This is a nightmare,” you murmured.

Why was Emmett outside at this time of night? Where was Tanir? Yet Emmett threw his arms around you in a snug embrace far too solidly to be some terrible dream. He nearly knocked the wind out of you with his enthusiasm.

“I finished my homework, Mom! You said that once I did we could go get some ice cream. Remember? You promised! And you left ages ago so I had to come looking for you, or by the time you got home you’d probably tell me it was too late for dessert.”

Very, very slowly, you lifted your head to look over at Jim. Standing so close to each other, Emmett and Jim’s resemblance was unmistakable: same eyes; same nose; hell, they even had the same jawline. Your mind raced to find some excuse, some lie that Jim might swallow—

But it was too late. The moment your eyes met, Jim turned around and walked away.

******

The following morning brought with it one of the worst headaches you had suffered since early adolescence. Any amount of synthetic sunlight felt like a phaser set to kill blasting through your frontal lobe. Your nausea was somehow worse. Getting Emmett out of bed, fed, and ready for his classes after your night of binge drinking took Herculean effort on your part. You had no intention of going to work that day. As soon as your son was out the door, you told the computer to dim every window, and then you settled miserably onto your couch.

Work found you anyway—or rather Tanir did. What was the difference? You did not answer the shriek of the buzzer, but he just came right inside anyway.

“Commander. May I inquire as to why you have chosen to remain on your sofa instead of coming into work on the Enterprise?”

“Because I’m hungover,” you groaned. “What does it look like?”

“A hangover is no excuse to shirk your duties. You knew very well that you had an obligation in the morning when you chose to drink yourself into a stupor.”

“The only thing happening today is the framework going up. It’s a standard Excelsior-class design. Surely you’re intelligent enough to oversee that on your own for a day.”

“My leadership capabilities are hardly relevant. What concerns me is that you believe hiding in your quarters and feeling sorry for yourself is a good solution to your problem.”

Tanir saying something like that twisted the bat'leth further into your gut. He had been the one to find you in the Yorktown bar, trying to convince the reluctant Bolian bartender to give you just one more glass of Saurian Brandy. You didn’t think you’d revealed the cause of your bad decision making to Tanir during the course of his getting you to your quarters safely, but surely that was the only way he would know about it.

“It.” Your son. Your son and his prodigal father. Would Jim really tell anyone else? When would he have had the time?

You could not very well leave the room in a huff in your present condition; the pounding in your head prevented you from so much as rolling over on the couch. To avoid having to look at Tanir, you closed your eyes. He didn’t take the hint, of course. Hints flew well over the head of most Vulcans.

“Emmett is Captain Kirk’s son, is he not?” he asked.

You nodded weakly.

“You never told either of them?”

Your eyes opened only wide enough to allow you to glare at him. “They didn’t need to know. If you hadn’t let Emmett run off last night after you helped him with his essay on the history of Human-Vulcan relations, no one else would know at all.”

“I am not a babysitter.”

You flinched—not at the way his voice sliced through your head, but because he was right. Tanir usually was, but on this matter he was more right than ever, and the vaguely hurt twinge in his words was deserved. If you had not been so afraid that doing as much would literally have caused your skull to split in two, you would have started crying right then and there.

“What I am is your coworker,” Tanir went on, “and your friend. And as your friend, I must inform you how monumentally foolish it was to bring your son here when you knew his father would be here as well. In fact, it was uncharacteristically foolish of you. I suspect you only did so because you wanted Captain Kirk to discover the truth.”

“After thirteen years, you really think I’d want to tell Jim about his son? I’ve worked too hard to build a decent life for myself and Emmett to just throw that all a way. Jim’s worked too hard to throw it all away!”

“I do not suggest you made the decision consciously, merely that you might consider that it was your choice going forward. This discovery might do him more good than harm.”

Which “him” Tanir referred to—Jim or Emmett—you never got the chance to ask. The noise of the front door sliding open (without so much as a buzzer to announce the newcomer) left you and Tanir staring at each for a split second before Jim himself stalked into the room.

“Captain,” said Tanir, “to what do we owe the—”

“How. Dare you,” Jim said.

He had eyes only for you. So great was the intensity of his gaze that you couldn’t be sure he even realized that Tanir had tried to greet him. What startled you more was that Jim wasn’t drunk. He looked as though he’d spent most of the night pacing and pulling at his hair, but he definitely hadn’t gone on the bender you had.

When you made no attempt to answer him, Jim spoke again:

“You told me you weren’t even going to have him.”

“I told you what you wanted to hear,” you said.

“Excuse me,” Tanir interjected, but this time, Jim did notice him.

He pointed right at Tanir’s chest. “If you want to stick around and listen to this, I’m not going to make you leave, but I’d appreciate it if you kept any logic-related remarks to yourself.”

Both of Tanir’s dark eyebrows rose, then he looked to you as though for permission. Perhaps he worried what Jim—a captain well-known for using old-fashioned fisticuffs more often than not—might do if left alone with you. You motioned with your head toward the door, despite the pain doing so caused you. Jim would not strike you physically. He’d had occasion to before and never had.

“Then I shall leave. Commander, I will ensure things go as planned today, but I expect you back to work tomorrow. Otherwise I will have to report your continued absence to Utopia Planitia.”

With that, he left. Not a single word passed between you or Jim until both of you could be sure that Tanir wouldn’t turn right back.

“That’s a load of shit, [Name].”

Every sentence he had spoken remained at the same volume, though his voice quavered enough to make his feelings clear.

With great effort, you heaved yourself into a seated position. “Which bit?”

“I told you that I’d take care of you. I told you that I’d be there for my kid.”

“And how were you planning to do that, Jim?”

“What?”

“How were you planning to 'take care’ of me? You weren’t going anywhere. You didn’t have any plans. Hell, you didn’t even have a job. All you wanted was to keep making trouble in Iowa until one of your stunts got you killed.”

“I…I would have figured something out,” he insisted.

“Sure you would. Meanwhile, what was I supposed to do? Do you think for one second my family would have helped us out? Or yours?”

Your vision pulsed around the edges as your tone grow higher pitched. Through this, you could see Jim’s wide-eyed, red face. He could be as angry as he wanted to, but after all these years, you were finally telling the truth. If he hadn’t wanted to hear it, he should have just minded his own business until he could get back on the Enterprise and fly right out of your life again.

“That’s not fair,” he said. “I got this far, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t start at Starfleet Academy until after I’d already graduated. And you were mad at me for signing up to go to begin with!”

“Because you left me!” At last, Jim’s voice rose to meet yours, and as it did, it cracked. “You left me, and there was nothing that mattered anymore once you were gone. And now I find out you took my son from me, too?”

With a jolt, you realized his eyes were wet. “You said last night that I made the right choice.”

“That was when I thought you had an abortion.”

“I was going to. I just…couldn’t do it in the end.”

“So you decided that you wanted to be mother, but you didn’t give me the opportunity to be a father.”

“This is insane. We wanted different things!” Your shout caused your stomach to flip over inside you, but you swallowed away the nausea. “I couldn’t stay in Iowa another month, let alone as long as it would take to raise a child. You weren’t going to leave. Something had to give, and it was easier for you to go on thinking I took care of the problem.”

“That wasn’t your call to make.”

“If I hadn’t told you I wasn’t going to have Emmett, we wouldn’t be the people we are today. You like who are you are today,” you reminded him. “Isn’t that reason enough for me to do what I did?”

“Emmett,” Jim repeated in a whisper. “His name is Emmett.”

You didn’t like his tone one bit. “Jim,” you began, but he had already leaped toward the door.

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“Like hell you are!”

“Whose going to stop me? You? You couldn’t stop an unhosted Trill symbiont right now.”

The churning in your stomach surged in strength; Jim’s shadowed outline seemed to blur around the edges. He could do it. He could run off this very instant, find Emmett, tell him everything. All your careful planning, all those difficulties endured as a single parent at the Academy, could come to ruin in the blink of an eye.

“I didn’t tell him either,” you said, and there was a pleading edge to your words that you couldn’t entirely quash.

Horror washed over his features. That was what bothered him the most out of all of this? That you hadn’t breathed a word to your son over who his father was? Not that it mattered. If that knowledge prevented Jim from seeking him out, so much the better. Did it, though? You couldn’t tell. He swallowed, opened his mouth, then closed it again to walk out the door.

As soon as you were alone, the nausea overcame you. Your shaking legs forced you to your feet…but too late to avoid vomiting all over your feet and the carpet.

Just one more stellar moment in this stellar life you’d just claimed was for the best.

******

Four weeks later, the newest Enterprise floated complete inside the spacedock. It had a taken a lot of staff doing a lot of work to get it ready—countless hours of testing, tweaking, and transporter modifications—but there she was: gleaming and gorgeous, ready to set off for the first time (technically) into the vast frontier.

You and Emmett stood together in your cleared-out laboratory. There was a party going on inside the ship beyond the transparent aluminum. Soon, someone would eject a bottle of champagne at just the right trajectory for it to break against the ship’s oddly-colored hull. It wouldn’t be long after that the Enterprise and all her staff would be gone again, far out of the reach of anyone on Utopia Planitia.

Emmett stared straight ahead. He refused to look at you. That was nothing new, but that didn’t mean you weren’t hurt by his behavior. His growing arms hung stiff at his sides, making him look all the more awkward in the nice clothes that he had donned for the occasion.

“Emmett,” you said.

“What?”

“It’s time to go.”

When he snapped his attention to you, his jaw was set. You’d seen that look a thousand times on a face that did not belong to him. Another flip of the stomach had you wondering if you were making the right call here. It had been four weeks. Before that, it had been thirteen years. Did anyone have the right to cause such an upheaval after so much time had passed?

You would lose your nerve standing around like that—your nerve and your designated transporter time. One sweeping motion of your arm got Emmett moving. Poor kid. Though he still refused to look at you, you could see him trembling. His skin (the color of which he had inherited from you, if nothing else) took on an ashy cast as he stepped onto the waiting pad. If you could have done something to comfort him, you would have. Boys his age were not interested in hugs, you were learning, and boys his age that were angry with their mothers were even less so.

“Two to beam up, Enterprise,” you said.

“Aye, I got you,” Mr. Scott’s voice said over the audio connection. “We’ll be seeing you soon.”

The lab dissolved before your eyes into a glittering stream of silver and white. Your body—or rather lack thereof—prickled like someone was rolling a cactus from the bottoms of your feet all the way up to your hairline. Then the worst part came: the darkness of non-existence. After that, sensation returned to you all at once. The prickling stopped and sight returned. You and your son stood together in an entirely different room, on an entirely different transporter.

Mr. Scott came around the monitoring station with a grin.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to get on it if you weren’t the one that installed this thing,” you said breathlessly.

“Well, Chekov helped. But he’s needed on the bridge, so I’ll do in a pinch when someone wants over. Are you here for the party?”

“I was actually hoping to see Jim. Would that be all right?”

Mr. Scott’s smile faded a little. Then his eyes went right to Emmett. “I don’t see why not. Hello,” he added to him. “I’m Montgomery Scott. And you are?”

“Emmett [L Name].” At least he wasn’t so mad at you that he had forgotten his manners. He gave Mr. Scott’s hand a firm shake before looking at you for direction.

“Good to meet you. Your mother speaks very highly of you. So does Mr. Tanir.“

"Thank you, sir.”

“Turbolift’s down at the end of the corridor. Just tell it you want the bridge and it will take you right there. Well!” He laughed. “Why am I telling you this? You built the damn thing!”

You offered your thanks as well. Then you and Emmett left the room. Color had crept up the back of his neck at Mr. Scott’s compliment, but it did not seem to have thawed him at all toward you. The quiet that sat between the both of you for the duration of the lift ride was as icy as one of Neptune’s moons.

This came to a grinding halt the minute the doors opened onto the bridge. A party was in full swing there. So many people were crammed into the room that it was a wonder any of the people carrying trays of drinks and foods of a dozen different cultures could get around them.

You looked immediately to the chair in the center…but it was vacant. Heart sinking, you took another look around you, only to this time gain the notice of Tanir, Spock, and a very pretty dark-skinned woman in red.

“Hello, Commander,” Spock said. “It is a pleasure to have you here for the ship’s christening. Mr. Tanir informed us you had a prior obligation.”

“That is what she told me,” said Tanir.

“No. What I told you was that I didn’t want to come, but I appreciate the cover story,” you said.

“It was no story. Your prior obligation was being elsewhere in consideration of your own mental health.”

The woman with them tried to a hide a dazzling smile behind her flute of synthehol champagne—no real alcohol was allowed on board with a warp so close at hand—but she did not do so well enough to avoid catching your eye.

“Sorry. You just don’t see Vulcans covering for their bosses very often. I’m Lieutenant Nyota Urhura, by the way. Communications officer. You and your staff did a fantastic job with this ship.”

“Thank you.”

Being inside the ship afforded you an entirely different view than your blueprints and designs ever could. Without a doubt, this new Enterprise was the closest thing to a work of art you’d ever been a part of. Mixing the Freedom-class starship with enough of a Constitution-class to remain familiar to its crew, all stuffed into the newest Excelsior-class framework made it entirely unique. No one was about to dub the new design an Enterprise-class considering just how unfeasible mass production would be, but you were proud of her nonetheless. You doubted anyone would notice how outdated the stereo was unless they were informed of its age by the crew.

“I take it this your son.”

Spock’s voice drew you from your admiration, reminding you that you were not here to bask in a job well done, but to make some much-needed amends.

Emmett stood behind you just as quiet as always. Normally he was so outgoing…then again, he was outgoing among the Utopia Planitia staff that had watched him grow up, not among a group of people that thought they already knew him because he looked familiar—or maybe he was being so shy because of Lieutenant Urhura. This was not a comforting thought for a mother that had given birth to him not much older than he was now.

“Yes,” you said. Gently, you took Emmett’s wrist and pulled him forward. “This is Emmett James [L Name]. Emmett, this is Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Urhura.”

“Good to meet you,” Spock flashed him the Vulcan salute, then added, “If you have half the mind your mother does, I expect we’ll be seeing great things of you.”

“Oh. I don’t know about that,” Emmett said. Color climbed from his neck to his ears.

“He’s twice as smart as I am,” you put in proudly.

“Perhaps more. I’ve read his papers. Certainly he is the most logical of the family,” said Tanir.

Lieutenant Urhura couldn’t take her eyes off your son. “Did you say Emmett James?”

“Yes. Speaking of, I really hoped to speak with Jim—I mean, Captain Kirk—before he left. Is he around anywhere?” you asked.

“Last I checked, he was in his quarters. I could call him up on comms if you’d like.”

“It is odd for the Captain not to be on a time for a social engagement,” said Spock, “but he has been uncharacteristically closed off for the past few months. Do you suppose he decided to take the vice admiral position after all?”

“No, Spock. Let me talk to him. I’ve got a pretty good idea why he’s been hiding so much lately. It was a pleasure to meet you, Commander, Emmett.”

You bid her farewell before she strode off to her communications desk. Spock followed her. Your heart hammered in your chest. Was Lieutenant Urhura right? Could Jim be closing off from his friends and coworkers because of you? Or were you just assuming the universe revolved around you as you always had? Some pathetic sun you were.

“Mom,” Emmett whispered. He looked stricken. “What if he doesn’t come?”

How could you even begin to answer that? If Jim didn’t come, it would be a long time before he got back into communication range again—if he would be willing to communicate with either of you at all. And if Jim never spoke to Emmett, never got to know the son you’d kept from him, it would be all your fault. You had kept Emmett’s existence a secret all these years. You had forbidden Jim from speaking to him when he found out. You had chosen to not tell Emmett the truth until the Enterprise was nearly ready to leave.

“If indeed Captain Kirk has become so upset by your mother’s actions as to turn into a recluse, it is highly unlikely that he will make an appearance after being informed that she is here,” Tanir said.

Emmett blanched; you glared at Tanir, though this had its usual lack of any effect. Before you could open your mouth to ask him to kindly keep such observations to himself, he went on in that same level voice:

“However, if the reason he is upset with her is because she has forbidden him to know you, there is no reason to assume that he will not come when he finds that you are here. Captain Kirk is not above bending rules he finds burdensome, and such a rule seems like it has become quite a burden.”

Your son relaxed a little. As much as you appreciated Tanir’s attempt to cheer Emmett up, you thought it would be best if you got the two of them away from each other sooner rather than later. Tanir could just as easily dash hopes as raise them, and his reasoning would be perfectly sound either way. The way Emmett looked up to Tanir would only exacerbate the former’s feelings.

“Here, Emmett, let’s find you something to eat,” you said, as one of the servers carrying a tray of some Orion delicacy passed. Emmett loved trying new food…or he did, when he wasn��t so upset with the world at large.

“I’m not hungry,” he said stiffly.

“Don’t be silly. You haven’t eaten all day. You’re a growing boy.”

“Mom. Don't—”

Whatever he wanted to tell you, Emmett broke off without finishing. His blue eyes froze on something behind you. Tanir’s gaze followed his until it, too, came to a halt. Slowly, you turned around to see what they were looking at.

Jim himself stepped out of the turbolift. The high color in his cheeks indicated that he had run from his shipboard quarters to the lift and still hadn’t quite caught his breath yet. His hair, on the other hand, had been immaculately combed, his uniform pressed, his boots polished to a high shine. All that remained perfectly in place.

Your stomach turned over, but it wasn’t from having too much to drink this time. You hadn’t seen each other, hadn’t spoken a single word, since that terrible fight a month before. What was he going to say when he found you standing on his bridge, bold as brass? What was he going to do?

Worrying about that turned out to be unnecessary. With Emmett standing just a little off from the captain’s chair in the center of the room, it didn’t take much searching for Jim to spot him. Their eyes locked and remained riveted on each other so thoroughly that you might as well have turned invisible. You didn’t mind (being invisible to Jim was probably preferable to the alternative), except that neither of the men seemed capable of breaking the silence between them, and crew and party-goers alike were starting to stare.

“Perhaps you ought to say something,” Tanir suggest in an undertone.

An excellent idea, but it was already too late. The quiet grew so unbearable that one of Jim’s crew apparently felt it his duty to break the ice himself: A young white man with curly brown hair and a yellow uniform jumped up from where he sat at the helm to shout, “Captain on the bridge!” in a thick Russian accent.

His words did the trick. Jim thawed enough to notice just how many people in the room were watching him with great interest. For once, he looked a little abashed at the attention, though perhaps it was only your memories that made his smile appear so sheepish.

“Thank you, Ensign Chekov!” he called, and several people in the room tittered.

“Happy to help, Captain,” Chekov said cheerfully, then plopped himself down next to a Japanese man who had a little girl sitting in his lap.

Jim waited for most of the onlookers to return to their previous conversations before he took a breath so deep you could see him taking it from several feet away, then seemed to force himself to cross the remaining distance to your trio.

“Hey,” he said, once he was in speaking range.

Hey. Hey? Thirteen years, a guilt trip the size of a gormagander, a thirty-three day-long cold shoulder, and the most Jim could manage to say to his son was hey? You couldn’t help the disbelieving snort you let out, unfortunately. It caused Jim to snap out of his daze long enough to notice you standing there next to Emmett.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, but his tone was not the same as it had been upon your first reunion. It was softer somehow, maybe even curious.

Nonetheless, your instinct was to rail against him. He might have been captain of this starship, but you were that ship’s architect. Who cared that he outranked you in Starfleet hierarchy?

Seeing Emmett watching you with glistening eyes reminded you that you had not come to this party to have another big blowout with his father. You took a deep breath before planting your feet more solidly onto the floor.

“I came to say I’m sorry,” you said.

“You…”

“I really surprised you with that one, did I?” No, that tone would not do. You tried again, this time with a more sincere tone: “I’m sorry, Jim. I’m sorry that I lied to you about Emmett, and I’m sorry I kept you from him all these years. I’m even more sorry that I told you you couldn’t talk to him now. And I’m sorry to you, too, Emmett. I should have told you about your father a long time ago.”

Jim looked thunderstruck. Emmett looked nearly just as surprised.

“Four accurate statements in a row. A new record,” Tanir said.

“Thank you, Mr. Tanir,” you and Jim said in unison.

To your surprise, Emmett laughed. He cleared his throat when he caught the two of you goggling at him. “Hey. It’s…it’s really good to meet you—er, Captain?”

“I think it would be okay if you called me 'Dad.’”

The grin on your son’s face could have lit up an entire solar system. “It’s really good to meet you, Dad.”

“Likewise, Emmett.”

Oh, no. There came the waterworks. Seeing your two boys like that, standing face to face, made your eyes mist up. It was a good thing that neither of them seemed in a hurry to do more than stand there face to face, or you might have missed something important while you tried without success to find something to wipe your eyes with.

“I believe in situations such as these, a hug would be the next appropriate course of action,” Tanir suggested.

“Don’t be a voyeur,” you said.

“It is being a voyeur now to suggest humans partake in a typical familial action in front of me?”

“They just met. Don’t rush things.”

Unfortunately, while this hushed exchanged took place, Emmett and Jim did awkwardly embrace. By the time you realized it was happening, both men had sprung apart.

“That was a little weird…right?” asked Jim.

Emmett nodded. “Weird, yeah.”

“Maybe it would be less weird if you two got to talk a little bit by yourself,” you said.

A sharp intake of breath from Emmett’s direction indicated he knew what you were suggesting. For the first time in his young life, you were about to leave him alone. No Tanir to fall back on. Just him and a strange man wearing his face. But you had had Emmett for nearly thirteen years now. You owed Jim much more time than that he would be able to eke out before the Enterprise left again on its five-year mission.

“Wait a minute,” said Jim. “You mean by ourselves without you?”

“I trust you, Jim.”

“That’s new.”

Maybe it was. Jim hadn’t ever given you a lot of reasons to trust him growing up. Other people’s belongings—other people’s hearts—were never something he’d been careful about. The point remained that Jim Kirk had changed. He’d grown up just as your son had in the years since you’d left, probably a lot more than you had yourself. Your decision to leave with Emmett might have been the right one, but the many decisions until then refusing to let either Emmett or Jim know the other existed was not.

“Hey,” Emmett said, “I’m not a kid. It’s not like either one of you has to look after me.”

“Nice try. You think I don’t remember what it was like to be a thirteen-year-old boy?”

“Welcome to having a father, Emm. I never experienced the boy part, but he sure did,” you said.

Slowly, Jim shook his head. “No. I don’t think it’s going to be enough.”

“What?”

“An hour today isn’t going to be enough. I’ve missed so much. I can’t let you just walk off the ship out and out of my life again—”

“Jim!”

“—so I’ll do you one better. How would you like to stay on the Enterprise with me for a little while?”

Emmett’s mouth fell open. “Stay with you? Here?”

“I don’t know about him staying with you that long,” you said. Jim rolled his eyes, so you cut him off quickly, “Your mission is going to last a really long time. What about school? What about being around other children?”

“It’s not as though we never have any children on board. Just a little while ago, a whole group of them nearly took over my ship with the help of a Force Ghost. And anyway, we have to stop at starbases for supplies. He could leave at one of those, easy.”

“Easy? You expect a thirteen-year-old boy to get all the way back to Mars on his own?”

“Of course not! I expect that his mother will be able to help him get back to Mars when she decides she’s had enough of living on a starship herself.”

For what seemed like enough time for the Enterprise to get all the way back to Earth at impulse speed, you could think of no way to answer Jim’s suggestion. Your mouth opened; it was just that nothing came out of it. A million different thoughts flew through your mind, none for long enough for you to grasp. Was this a test? Was Jim playing some cruel trick on you? Or were you overthinking what he had intended to be a joke?

“[Name]? You still with us?” he asked, with that same familiar tap on your forehead.

“Yes. I’m sorry. This is just…quite a shock. You don’t want me out there with you.”

“Sure I do.” He eyed Emmett speculatively, then stepped right up to you—so close that you could smell his cologne, so close that you could have kissed him right there without giving him time to move away. Not that you considered doing that. “You were right about one thing: I don’t know the first thing about being a father. If Emmett’s going to stay, I need you here.”

What was it about the way he spoke that made your knees go weak? You were a grown woman, a commander in your own right, a major figure at Utopia Planitia, and still all it took was for this one man to say he needed you? Disgusting…and yet his offer was tempting. Emmett should stay, but you didn’t think you were quite ready for him to be light years away from you for months (perhaps years) at a time.

“A lovely sentiment, Captain. However, I think you are overlooking an important detail. The Enterprise, even in its updated condition, is not setup to accommodate families,” Tanir said.

Jim waved his concern (and eavesdropping) away. “We’ll figure something out. You both can stay in my quarters for all I care.”

“Please, Mom!” Emmett said. It had been so long that he spoke to you without anger that that was nearly enough to convince you. Almost.

“I’m expected back to work as soon as I can find a shuttle to take me there,” you hedged.

“Mr. Tanir can look after things for a while, can’t he?” asked Jim. “And Mr. Scott can always use an extra hand in Engineering. We won’t have you sitting around all day every day.”

“Emmett has to get back to his regular classes.”

“Oh, come on! You really think that his teacher will refuse to give him any credit if he’s with me?”

“Yeah, Mom! Mrs. Onaira won’t mind if I’m on the Enterprise! Especially if I’m with both of you.”

Forget the combined pressure of two Vulcans. How could you ever possibly say no to Jim and Emmett when they joined forces like that? You turned helplessly to Tanir, who only gazed, as always, placidly back. He hadn’t rejected the chance to go back to Utopia Planitia in your stead, you noticed. There was no question that he’d would do a fine job…

Something warm on your hands forced your attention back to Jim. He had taken them in his own, causing your heart to leap all the way into your throat. You couldn’t breathe. This sensation only increased when he leaned in and very gently pressed his forehead against yours. Until that very moment, you had forgotten how comforting that gesture on his part was. No way would you decline his offer after that, but he added:

“I wasn’t what you needed me to be then. But I’ve grown up. Now I’m ready to leave Iowa, and I’m ready to go with you. Just give me a chance to show that to you. Or at least a chance to get to know you and my son. I won’t keep you here if you decide to go.”

“Okay.” Your voice cracked around a sob you hadn’t noticed had been lurking in your throat. So surprised were you to find yourself crying that you couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, you win. You both win. I have a feeling that’s going to happen a lot from here on out.”

“I’m counting on it,” said Jim while Emmett cheered.

Throughout this ordeal, you hadn’t quite forgotten how many people were around you. You tried to back away from Jim before more of his crew could find you together. Before you could take so much as a single step away, he leaned down and kissed you on the mouth, hard enough to bring all those Milky Way stars right back into view.

It was over as soon as it started, but for good reason. As your mind finally caught up with reality, Jim grabbed Emmett’s arm and pulled him into a hug with you. You pulled Tanir in not long after. There, tangled up in the limbs of every person you truly cared about, you realized just how much you’d missed over the past twelve years and just how much you had to gain in all the years to come.

[lizzies-gameblr]

U.S.S. Panzerstadt-Bayreuth NX-97010 A

Not a full successor ship like Enterprise A is to the Enterprise, my lore explanation \ RP idea for this ship is badly damaged in some adventure and almost completely rebuilt, using new blueprints based off scans of the Terran dreadnought featured in the most recent campagin (hence the temporary NX designation)

It's an MMO - the point is to be kinda cringey right?

Seen here taking a shakedown cruise over the Andor and it's moon Andoria, the home of my captain & main 'toon - Nassys Pohl.

With the release of this ship being discounted and a Zen-store purchase bonus (not right word?) I decided to go for the Legendary Terran Dreadnought. I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea - I know the Odyssey\Yorktown class isn't a fave at the best of times, and the weapons pod here won't do it many favours - but I like it.

It's sporting the Galaxy hull material here, which I think looks pretty good - though I have been running the Sovereign material, since I'm a sucker for that bronze-y deflector and lighter hull panelling. I'm sure there's some vanity shields that look great on this, but I don't have any of the decent ones yet.

Last image here with some peregrine fighters doing loops around the ship for lulz

[prue84]

(Part of the Crews AUs series)  |  USS Enterprise crew, AOS

The USS Enterprise senior crew and additional main crew at the start of the year 2261.

“To Boldly Go”

Ship's Name: U.S.S. Enterprise Ship's Registry: NCC-1701 Command History: Captain Christopher Pike (2254-2258) Commander Spock (2258-2258) Captain James T. Kirk (2258-2259) Admiral Christopher Pike (2259-2259) Captain James T. Kirk (2259-PRESENT) Ship's Class: Constitution Class Ship's Type: Heavy Cruiser Ship’s Overview: Flagship of Starfleet, pride of the Federation, the "Silver Lady" that saved Earth two times in the span of one year under the command of Captain Kirk and first starship assigned to a five-year exploration mission of uncharted deep space, the Enterprise is already a legend on its own. Ship’s Service History, abridged: _ Constructed at the Riverside Shipyard, Iowa, and planned to launch in early 2258, the Enterprise received its baptism of blood the same day of the biggest tragedy ever occurred in the Federation since its founding, the loss of planet Vulcan and the genocide of six billion of its inhabitants. After the heavy damage sustained during the battle with the Vengeance in stardate 2259.55, and nearly a year spent in spacedock for refitting, the Enterprise left Earth on 2260.133 to embark on the five-year mission. Former commanding officers are late Admiral Pike, its captain during the hastened maiden voyage, and Acting Captain Spock, his first officer at the time. << complete service history >> Status: Active (2261) Crew complement: 1,100 (1,100) Crew manifest: _ <read more for the extensive list>

Liaison officer: Rear Admiral Una Chin-Riley In 2258, a brand-new promoted Admiral Christopher Pike was tasked with the honor - and burden - of keeping an eye on the USS Enterprise and, especially, on its unruly and inexperienced captain wonder. When he tragically died, and the dust of Harrison's terrorist attack settled down, the Enterprise was left without an adult keeping an eye on the youngest and less-experienced senior crew of the whole Starfleet. Twice savior of Earth, with a problem of discipline and with a penchant to disregard rules (helped by a suspiciously accomplice Spock), no-one at Headquarters really looked forward for that mess that is Captain James Kirk to be landed in their lap, especially now with Starfleet under scrutiny and the Enterprise once again the hero in the eyes of the public opinion. Rear Admiral Chin-Riley, fresh from a quick promotion, stepped up, feeling it was her duty to continue the job of the man and colleague she cared and respected the most. Her rationality and cool demeanor is a complete change, from the paternal-like carrot-stick attitude of Pike, but Kirk - after some initial hostility (mostly for his hurting for having lost what was a father figure and mentor for him) - warms up to her. Unsurprisingly, she and Spock established a good connection with each other that goes back to when both served on the USS Yorktown under Pike. Which means that now Spock has an ally that can overrank his illogical captain.

Commanding officer: Captain James T. Kirk Son of a Starfleet hero who sacrificed himself to save his crew, repeated offender and bored genius stuck in the backwoods town of Riverside, James Kirk's first encounter with Starfleet was a punch. Literally. After a brawling with three cadets who where in the town to visit the Shipyard, he was approached by captain Pike who, admiring his "leap without looking" attitude, dared him into enlisting. Top of his class in survival strategies and tactical analysis and the assistant instructor in advanced hand-to-hand combat, cadet Kirk was awarded the Palm Leaf of Axanar Peace Mission of valor in 2256, when he served two academic quarters on the USS Farragut. First cadet ever to beat the infamous Kobayashi Maru test, he was facing disciplinary charges in front of the board when Vulcan distress call forced the assembly to adjourn. Put on academy probation and grounded, he was sneaked on the Enterprise by his closest friend, doctor McCoy, who injected him a vaccine that caused a rare allergic reaction - and thus the origin of the meme about James Kirk being allergic to everything. Record holder of quickest climb of Starfleeet's ladder and one of the youngest captains in the history of the institution, he moved up from cadet straight to the top, (acting) captain, in the span of half a day, and he's the reason why the Enterprise run after Nero instead of regrouping with the rest of the Fleet, ultimately saving Earth for its planned demise. Owner of a commendation for "original thinking" for his solution to the unbeatable scenario, on top of receiving a medal for his role during the Battle of Earth, he was promoted captain and handed over the flagship. Barely graduated and thrust into it without paying his dues on the bridge of a couple of ships, Kirk had to prove he had what it took to jump several rungs of the ladder and sit in the chair to a crew that mostly knew him as the guy who cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test, but his relentless and fearless attitude, his never asking others to do anything that he wouldn't do himself eventually won even the most skeptic. Firm believer that the strength of a starship lies in its crew, he switched from not believing in no-win scenarios out of a way to deal with his childhood trauma (his father's death) to not conceiving no-win scenarios as long as he has his crew at his side. The no-win scenario that will beat him still has to come, not even death - the ultimate no-win scenario - managed to beat him so far. Diametrically opposite to his first officer Spock, Starfleet thought they did the best thing matching the two; too late they understood how big their mistake had been, for together Kirk and Spock do make an impressive commanding duo, but they also ruin each other and, worst, they back each other up. Whilst they make for an impressive team, according to Starfleet they don't complete each other in the best of the ways. Despite his brief tenure in Starfleet, he's already built himself a reputation for neglecting protocol. What people tend to forget is that, to break rules, to know protocol first is in order - and Jim knows his Starfleet General Orders and Regulations inside out. He's the frontman and embodiment of the Hot Shots, a group made of the youngest captains currently serving in Starfleet. Originally a derogatory moniker used by veterans to mock officers who were trust into the chair in a short time, it has been since reclaimed by the younger generations as their proud nickname. He's best friend with doctor McCoy, the only one who can wield some sort of power over him. With lieutenants Uhura and Marcus they give life to the craziest trio of the whole crew: they are the always the King and Queens of the prom, so to speak, and their costumes skills are already legend. After The Incident That Might Not Be Named - which, really, cannot be spoken about in presence of anyone of the crew, he got the affectionate nickname "Warpcore whisperer".

First officer and Chief science officer: Commander Spock Son of Vulcan's Ambassador Sarek and former Earth's teacher Amanda Grayson, Spock was ostracized and bullied all his early life about his dual nature, to the point that he was belittled from the Vulcan Science Academy board few seconds after they announced he was admitted to the institution. As cadet he specialized in computer programming, with tracking toward science officer, and was awarded the title of "Grandmaster" by the Federation's Three-Dimensional Chess Organization. First Vulcan/human hybrid to serve in Starfleet, he was one of the most distinguished graduates of the Academy when, in 2250, was commissioned as officer and assigned o the USS Yorktown, where he served for five years under Captain Pike. During his tenure on the ship he stroke a close bond with first officer Una Chin-Riley, who helped him learn to work with humans while retaining his Vulcan controlled demeanor. In 2258, the year in which all his life will be forever changed, he's in his third year as instructor of advanced phonology and interspecies ethics at the Academy, waiting for the Enterprise to be launched and to assume his new position as its first officer. The death of his mother, on top of the loss of his homeworld and most of his people, left a scar in him that will never truly heal. Leaving command of the ship during the crisis on the basis of his being emotionally compromised, he's the only one of the crew who never thought it was disrespectful that Kirk passed him over for the promotion to captain, nor bore any grudge toward his superior. As an officer who knows Starfleet General Orders and Regulations by hearth and firmly believes into sticking to those guidelines, Starfleet thought he would be the best choice for Captain Kirk's first officer, sure that the Vulcan would keep in check the unpredictable golden boy, but Spock revealed a new ability to find a way around rules by embracing technicalities to hide behind - an annoying trait that he started to show only after being partnered to Captain Kirk (whose bad habits rubbed on him, according to Pike). Too late Starfleet realized their mistake, and by then Spock was already ruined, proving over and over again he's got no qualm to ignore red tape if life preservation is on the line. Together, he and Kirk make an impressive commanding duo, but sadly (at least from Starfleet's point of view) they also back each other up with a fierceness only brothers in arms know and there's the general feeling that Spock is by now more loyal to Kirk than to Starfleet itself - that, between adhering to regulations and clash with Kirk and facing even the worst consequences to stick with Kirk, he would always pick the second. He's an expert in Suus Mahna, a Vulcan martial art that comes in handy during infiltration missions or when he doesn't have a firing weapon, and has also turned the Vulcan nerve-pinch into a brutal move to incapacity enemies. Involved in a romantic relationship with Lieutenant Uhura since at least 2257, when she still was a cadet and he his former teacher, he recently gifted her with a necklace that belonged to his mother Amanda, a pendant featuring a vokaya, a Vulcan stone.

Chief medical officer: Lieutenant Commander Leonard H. McCoy Divorced and father of a daughter, Joanna, he's quoted to have joined Starfleet after his wife took everything from him. He hates space with all of himself, so much that at the Academy he organized the first astrophobia seminar, but after Nero he stayed on the sole reason of keeping an eye on his best friend, that bloody lunatic with a suicide streak who goes under the name of James Kirk. He has his very peculiar way to run sickbay, has mean bedside manners and his hand might be a bit heavy when brandishing the hypospray, but he's a top physician who's ready to drive himself to madness if it will help heal any ill under his watch. With a penchant for metaphors and a sexy Southerner accent, he's the core of the senior crew, the one who balances the logical approach of Spock with a very human emotional and passionate nature to complete Jim's intuitive one. He spends too much time on the bridge instead of his natural habitat, the sickbay, and his favorite pastime is grumble and bicker with Mr. Spock, for whom he feels respect but also manages to drive him insane most of the days.

Chief engineer and Second officer: Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott Brilliant engineer and physicist, Montgomery Scott - "Scotty" for his friends - was an Academy aide for Admiral Jonathan Archer's Advanced Relativistic Mechanics course when he first postulated the revolutionary transwarp theory, a formula that he would eventually successfully perfect in 2258 with himself and cadet Kirk as test subjects by beaming from the outpost on Delta Vega, where he had been assigned as a punitive measure after testing his theory on Admiral Archer's prized beagle, to the USS Enterprise traveling at warp speed. Recruited as chief engineer by the acting captain right before the Battle of Earth, he saved the ship from being pulled into a blackhole and was rewarded with the official appointment to chief engineer of the Enterprise. On top of being the inventor of the transwarp beaming formula, immediately confiscated by Starfleet, he has entered in Starfleet's history as the first to successfully beam three people from two different locations onto one pad. Most of his time in the engineering section is spent making modifications and implementations (not always with the permission of the captain) while also criticizing the quality of the repair and procurement policies of Starfleet Engineering. Under his supervision, the Enterprise constantly outperforms the propulsion metrics for Constitution-class ships and he is by now considered one of the best engineer of all the fleet. A mix of brilliance and intentionally exaggerate estimations of repairs has won him the reputation of being a "miracle worker". He prides himself of holding the position of second officer on the only basis that Kirk's out-stubborned Starfleet's HQ, that had put a ban on his head and the veto to ever give him such an important role. His best friend is Lieutenant Keenser, whom he met during his exile on Delta Vega and managed to bring with himself on the Enterprise.

Chief communications officer: Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Academy aide for the advanced phonology and advanced acoustical engineering courses and proficient in eighty-three percent of official Federation languages and regional dialects, cadet Uhura proved her skills by intercepting and translating a message from within Klingon territory about an unknown Romulan vessel. A few days later, during the emergency launch of the Enterprise to Vulcan, she earned her place as communications officers on the bridge when she confirmed that, unlike the ship's assigned chief communications officer, she was fluent in all three Romulan dialects and could therefore distinguish Romulan from transmissions in Vulcan, while her interception of the Klingon message became essential to help Kirk conclude and then convince Captain Pike that the Enterprise was in danger. Despite her main specialization being xenolinguistics, she's proven her courage and fighting skills on the field plenty of times as well, including by attempting negotiations with Klingons in Klingonese during a retrieving mission on Qo'noS. Nyota is romantically involved with Spock since 2257, when they started dating after she completed a course Spock was teaching. After a rocky start, that included a poor attempt at flirting on her followed by bar brawl, she has grown fond of James Kirk, who has eventually become one of her best friend: now they bond over the difficulties to be the other half (platonic for Kirk, romantic for her) of the only Vulcan serving on the Enterprise, and she volunteered to be his PR manager - a duty that comes with both an insane amount of frustration and hysterical laughs. Kirk also officially nicknamed her "Queen of the Enterprise", a title she shares with the third part of this odd friendship triangle made of gossip and shopping sprees, Carol Marcus. Besides the friendship with the senior crew members she shares most of the shifts with, and her relationship with Spock, she has recently got close to nurse Chapel. Known among her colleagues for her singing talent, she's learning to play the Vulcan lyre with the tutoring help of Spock.

Senior helmsman and Third officer: Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Top of his class in Astro-Sciences and Advanced Botany, as well as founder of Starfleet Academy's European Swordsmanship club and skilled fencer, Hikaru had already turned down the offer to join an elite unit of Starfleet and was already considered one of the Federation's best pilots when, still a cadet, took the the helm of the Enterprise in its impromptu maiden voyage in place of the ill Lieutenant McKenna. His anxiety, that lead to the failure of releasing the ship's external inertial dampener before setting to warp, it's what ultimately saved the Enterprise from destruction, as it delayed by several moments the jump of the ship, allowing it to arrive at Vulcan only after the Narada's assault that wiped out the rest of the fleet. The episode, while becoming a recurring joke, is also officially regarded as one of the reason the Battle of Earth was successfully won and the planet saved. The tragic events of 2259 had a profound impact on Hikaru, the first of the senior crew to decide to not abandon the damaged ship failing on Earth. Initially committed to wait until a law allowing civilians to join their enlisted partners was finally debated and approved, Kirk's sacrifice and all the lives lost during the battle made Hikaru painful aware that life in his line of work is too short and too uncertain to wait for institutions to move forward and so, as soon as he was allowed to flee from the mandatory debriefings, he proposed to his then-partner Ben. Hikaru had to leave behind Ben when the Enterprise left for its first five-year mission, but he hopes that soon Starfleet will allow families on starship, as both men can't wait to properly live together like a true family and raise togethere the little Demora, their daughter. He and his shift partner at the console, Ensign Chekov, are called "The Gossip Queens" of the ship: 90% of any rumor about the senior crew that reaches the ship's grapevine comes from them.

Chief navigator and Tactical officer: Ensign Pavel A. Chekov Top of his class in stellar cartography and transporter theory, expert in advanced theoretical physics, and the youngest cadet in history to win the Starfleet Academy marathon, Pavel graduated at the age of seventeen, the second-youngest freshman cadet in Starfleet Academy history. He was still a cadet when Battle of Earth happened and he found himself at the navigation console of the USS Enterprise. Both helmsman Sulu and then-cadet Kirk owe their lives to his superior mathematical skills: by calculating coordinates faster than the transporter computer, he could successfully beam out the two from the disabled Narada probe heading fast toward the ground when the computer was failing to and neither computer nor transporter technician could get a lock on them. Graduated from command track, in the following year in space Pavel, wishing to learn more about engineering, shadowed chief engineer Scott. Before the Enterprise's departure for Qo'noS, and after the abrupt resignation from the chief engineer, he was temporarily promoted new chief engineer and shown into a red shirt, much to Pavel's chagrin. His annoying trait is claim that everything eventually has been invented or created either in Russia or by a Russian person; while this has become a recurring joke, akin to a meme, and he plays on it to amuse his peers, from time to time he happens to change details in Earth's history to give more prominence to his motherland. Until he became legal, right in the middle of the first year of service, he was considered a little brother by most of the crew - something that prevented him to find officers available to a date with him. While things have been improving for him on that side, he's still considered the ship's mascot and some of the senior officers still like to ruffle his hair and treat him like a cute puppy, annoying the hell out of him. He plays the guitar, often with the captain, but his favorite hobby is photography, for which he has quite a talent. He might also hide alcohol in his locker: everyone in the senior crew knows but pretend to not to, especially the captain - who, technically, should confiscate it. Behind his cute face he's a mean chess player and an even meaner gossip spreader, a diversion he shares with his console mate and partner in crime, helmsman Sulu, during tedious, uneventful shifts.

Engineer: Lieutenant Keenser Introduced to Starfleet in 2230 by Captain Robau and Commander George Kirk, whom he helped by offering a complete diagnostic of the broken landing shuttle used to bring the party on the planet for the first contact, Keenser left his planet, with the blessing of his parents, for a life in space and, three years later, he was the first of his race to ever graduate at the Academy. Becoming an officer few months after the tragedy of the Kelvin, he dedicated his service to his fallen friends. His long career reached its peak when, promoted chief engineer, was assigned to what was at the time a new research station, Delta Vega. It was years later that, in the now abandoned post, he met what would become his closest friend, whom he would follow on the Enterprise. His father once predicted Keenser was destined for great things - little he could know that, thanks to that fateful meeting, his son would become an essential member of a crew that would enter history under the son of the same man who brought him away from a planet he felt too small for him. Too tall to be accepted on his own homeworld, ironically he's too short to serve on a starship not fitting his size without facing every-day complications, but what he lacks in height he compensates for with his intelligence and engineering skills, putting his unique talent to pinpoint problems to the service of the engineering compartment. Not even being colorblind stopped him from becoming chief engineer Scott's reliable right hand, so loyal that when Scott resigned from the Enterprise he followed suit. Smart and great thinker, he's not a talker as he rarely speaks more than one word at a time. Despite his small size, he's one of the bravest of the ship, firmly believing that one should always stand their ground - even in front of a lethal hengrauggi.

Security chief: Lieutenant Commander G. P. Hendorff Burly on the outside but with a hearth of gold and loyal to a fault toward his friends, Hendorff's role in the immense canvas of destiny starts when he was a cadet visiting to Starfleet's shipyard in Riverside, Iowa. Here, at the Shipyard Bar, he bumped into a local guy who was trying to pick up his friend and fellow cadet Nyota Uhura. A three-on-one bar fight ensued and he ended up in trouble with the commanding officer in charge of their group, captain Pike, from whom he received a reprimand. The guy he assaulted turned out to be James Kirk and Pike had the chance to challenge him into being part of the fleet and prove to be better than his dead Starfleet's hero father. It can be said that, in a way, it's because of Hendorff that Kirk enlisted in Starfleet, and he can also take small credit for everything that ensued - including Nero's final demise and Earth still orbiting around the sun. Like many of his peers, Hendorff was a four-year cadet when he was ordered to report to the Enterprise where he was assigned to security, one of the many in a crew as large as the flagship's. As part of the young and inexperienced crew that, despite all odds, saved the day in the Battle of Earth, he was awarded with a commission, the rank of ensign and a permanent assignment to the Enterprise. His relationship with the now-captain was awkward at best, with Hendorff having assaulted him once and then arrested him later, but an awkward official meeting between the two of them settled things: he might've kissed up to his new boss at that time, but he spoke his mind and he relayed the crew's doubts and sentiment about the promotion of their new commanding officer. He eventually got to know the captain both as superior and fellow officer on the field and their relationship became one of mutual respect. Picked to be part of the small party that traveled to Qo'Nos, he was the only one of the three security officers to survive during the brutal assault from the Klingon party: almost screwed by a bat'leth, he was saved by Uhura, who protected him and kept him alive enough for him to be brought back on the ship. When, almost a year later, the Enterprise left Earth to embark on the five-years mission, he had been promoted to deputy security chief. Despite Hendorff's repeated reminders to Kirk of his name, the captain at times still calls him "Cupcake", although as of now it has become an affectionate nickname in reminiscence of the old, simpler times. Very proud of wearing the red shirt, so much that he considers the first time he put the uniform on "the proudest day of his life", he doesn't care about the urban legend that being a redshirt is bad luck or the jokes made about them security: he firmly believes that operations officers are the blood that keeps the heart of Starfleet pumping and that's the spirit with which he dons the uniform every morning. Despite not seeing each other as much as they did at the academy, he's still close friend to Lieutenant Uhura, so much that she comes to sickbay every time he ends up there after a landing party went wrong. Recently, after the unfortunate death of his superior officer during a disastrous first contact went wrong, he's been promoted to security chief.

Chief armory and tactical systems officer: Lieutenant Carol Marcus Daughter of late Starfleet's Commander in Chief Marcus, she lost what was left of her family during the catastrophic battle against the superior USS Vengeance. Now orphan, and with a surname tainted by the terrorist actions of her father, Carol finds on the Enterprise a new family where she's welcomed for what she is, a specialist with impressive credentials that would earn anyone a posting on the flagship, and an officer whose knowledge and courage had dramatically ruined Marcus plans for the Enterprise to provoke the Klingon Empire in a galactic war. On a ship where the captain is son of a Starfleet fallen hero, the crew has learned to not look at the surname, to judge officers for their own actions and not for their parentage, and so she can shine on her own and make a name for herself. Drawn together at first because of their shared experience on the Vengeance, she and Kirk find a kinship on carrying the legacy of a surname, the complications and conflicts of growing up with a heavy father figure, on the desperation of getting free from such a shadow and, from there, a true friendship develops. Passionate about her job, competent, brave, and with a mean wit, she quickly earns her spot in the core crew, a role that is cemented when her expertise as weapons specialist is finally honored and she's promoted to Armory chief officer. Later, Kirk assigns her the Chief tactical systems officer position as well - a position usually reserved to officers with a operation tracking specialization - thus entrusting the care and supervision of all the weapons both carried and mounted on the Enterprise in her capable hands. With the help of Mr. Scott, who (like a true engineer) oversees the practical side, she endlessly upgrades the weapons and designs new additions for the ship's tactical systems.

Navigator: Lieutenant Mae Darwin Transfer to a starship where the most of the crew had their first testing during the Battle of Earth was cause of great concern for Mae, who had been stuck on a ship in the Laurentian system when the Enterprise left Earth to aid Vulcan. Senior in graduation to most of the Enterprise more prominent officers, more experienced, promotion earned for her dutiful service and not during an emergency or as a reward for some heroic action, she felt almost like intruding in a tight-knit team that would perceive any outsider a threat. The environment she found was diametrically opposite to the one her fellow officers anticipated when she broke them the news of her new assignment. She didn't find a bunch of lucky newbies with a rush graduation on the shoulders, cadets playing dress up with the uniforms who let fame go to their heads, or any other mean thing Starfleet officers thought about the Enterprise young crew, but a family that had come together in tragedy and is trying to find their feet without a danger to force the better out of them. A family who is desperate to prove that they earned their promotions and their place on the flagship. And surprisingly she's welcomed, she isn't the intruder but a new transfer and everyone is eager to make her feel home, as if they were all living in a big, happy college campus. Before she knows it, she is cracking jokes and settling in, at ease in the odd bubble lead by Captain Kirk and his unique - and quite orthodox - commanding style. Her skills and strength of character were tested as relief navigator during the Enterprise most tragic battle, and her abilities to keep a cool head during the crisis has won her a permanent assignment to the bridge. Despite her imposing looks that manage to scare people away, she's very funny and down to earth and possesses a fine sense of humor. She's a talented dancer and teaches at the tap dance course.

Transporter chief: Lieutenant Commander Christopher Kyle At first just one of the many transporter technicians embarked on a constitution-class, Kyle's very presence on the Enterprise during its impromptu maiden voyage happened out of sheer chance. Former transporter chief of a decommissioned frigate, he was temporarily working as transporter operator at San Francisco's Old City Station facility while waiting for Starfleet HQ to decide on his next assignment, when every officer available in town was hastily recalled to service to crew the ships that would respond to Vulcan's distress call. It was sheer luck that he was working alongside the then-transporter chief when the transporter room was twice visited by members of the senior crew and that he was later picked by acting chief engineer Scott as assistant when acting captain and first officer embarked on the extraction mission on the Narada to save captain Pike. Him being part of three rescue missions, albeit just as little more than as a witness, warranted him the chance to be invited to the sober and private gathering held by the senior crew to celebrate their survival against all odds, where he got to know better Montgomery Scott. Having being considered by many senior crew members as one of their own (despite him being already an experienced lieutenant commander and them still cadets) and being taken under the wing of the newly appointed chief engineer, gave Kyle both the courage to apply for the flagship and the clout necessary for his request to be accepted as soon as it landed on brand-new Captain Kirk's desk. On top of quickly raising to the position of primary transporter chief, he works as engineering assistant. He is father of two daughters, Susan and Dawn, who live in New Berlin, Luna, with his wife Rebecca. He also has an older twin brother, John, who has recently left his civilian career to enlist and he's now a cadet in the operations track.

Security area chief: Lieutenant Moto Formerly climate-control officer, Moto were soon assigned to monitoring the brigs. Comfortable with silence and solitude, they prefer night shifts, when the lower lights offer for a more calming environment, so much that Moto had to ask a special exoneration from the captain to not be included in the required rotation of shifts. With the brigs seldom occupied, theirs is a very quiet job and they can enjoy a loneliness that, on a starship as big as the Enterprise, it's hard to find. After the events that crippled the Enterprise, during which the security area chief died, Moto have been promoted to replace their fallen superior and the brigs are now under their direct supervision.

Chief computer systems officer: Lieutenant 0718 Augmented with advanced cybernetic implants that put him in direct telepathic connection with the ship's systems at all times, Lieutenant 0718 had been for the Enterprise what could amount to a glorified liaison officer, the closest technology could get to a "starship whisperer". Living on a starship where the first officer is a Vulcan allowed him to find his own place despite his at times apparently emotionless approach to others, and the Enterprise quickly became his home and his adoptive family. When a series of unforeseeable events lead to the birth of a humanoid embodiment of the Enterprise who took his place at the computer auxiliary station on the bridge, 0718 apparently lost his usefulness on the starship and feared that in his near future laid the order of transfer to another ship. His dedication and loyalty to the Enterprise and the family she embodies was instead taken into account: his abilities were judged too precious to be wasted and he was granted the right to stay on the starship as long as he wished to. Under suggestion of Commander Spock, Captain Kirk compensated 0718 transfer off the bridge with the relocation to the primary computer access room and the promotion to chief computer system officer. An offer that 0718 gratefully accepted. Lieutenant 0718 continues to use his augmentations to communicate with the Enterprise's systems and is in charge of the computer systems maintenance. Thanks of his abilities, the efficiency of the whole department increased exponentially since his appointment.

Head nurse: Ensign Christine Chapel Drawn away from the Enterprise when the man with whom she had a brief relationship with (a relationship that didn't end well) was awarded with a captainship of the ship she had been assigned to, Christine transferred to the outer frontier, where she kept working as nurse. Close friend of Carol Marcus, Christine returned to Earth to help Carol work through the tragedy occurred in her life. When, half a year later, Carol was officially posted on the Enterprise, Christine found herself in the awkward position of choosing between following her friend out in space and return on the flagship or steer away from serving under a man she feels no respect for. Carol, wishing the best for her friend (which meant serving on the flagship) but also out of selfishness, called in a favor and Uhura bullied Kirk into sitting down in front of Christine for a face to face; after a promise that their past relationship would not interfere nor taint their professional relationship, Christine applied for a transfer on the Enterprise. Her competence and matter-of-fact attitude earned her the respect from CMO McCoy and, barely a month into her new position, she was promoted to head nurse. Despite her gentle and friendly nature, she turns into a very strict officer if necessity requires it and more than often McCoy entrust her the sickbay. She might enjoy it the best when the patient on the bed is one captain and she's been given by the CMO the complete authority over him, but she will never admit it. Her unrequited crush for Mr.Spock didn't hinder her growing friendship with Uhura, who soon becomes close to her as she is to Carol: they bond over their mostly-fake exasperation about Kirk, and on a ship where most of the crew look up at Kirk as if he were a god walking among mortals and when Carol has become Kirk's partner in crime, it's definitely something.

Senior medical officer: Lieutenant Joseph M'Benga One of the first human doctors to specialize in Vulcan medicine and a pioneer of interspecies medicine, he was conducting a medical internship on Vulcan when the Narada appeared in the Vulcan system and he was one of the survivors beamed on the Enterprise during the dramatic evacuation of the planet. Offering his assistance as medical officer, he caught the attention of freshly promoted CMO McCoy when his Vulcan-like manners proved crucial in a sickbay full of Vulcans who were experiencing the mental backlash of the genocide the Enterprise had been unable to prevent. After the defeat of Nero, with the Enterprise back at drydock for reparations, officially appointed CMO McCoy approached M'Benga offering him a full-time position aboard the Enterprise on the basis that a medical officer who interned for seven years in a Vulcan ward would be of help on the ship where the only human-vulcan hybrid was assigned. Since then, M'Benga had proven plenty of times that McCoy's choice had been a wise one, being the primary physician where Spock's health is concerned and, in a couple of times, his extensive knowledge of Vulcan physiology and psychology saved Spock's life. In less than a year, before that ill-fated mission on Nibiru was even conceived, he had been promoted to senior medical officer and McCoy's trustworthy second. In McCoy's absence, he becomes the ranking CMO.

Helmsman and Tactical officer: Lieutenant Gary Mitchell Close friend of James Kirk at Starfleet Academy, his transfer on the Enterprise was James Kirk's first request as promoted captain. Apt helmsman, he shares the shift with navigator Lee Kelso, a common friend of his and Kirk. With a keen interest in studying warp engine design and stellar navigation, he engages in long discussions with chief engineer Scott over improvements and new designs. His high intelligence quotient makes him a mean adversary in 3-D chess and his higher than average aperception quotient counterbalances the illogical and unpredictable ways in which Kirk usually play. Kirk might prefer to play with Spock for this very reason: he just cannot beat Gary, which doesn't help in curb in Gary's ego. Boisterous, cocky and confident, fully aware of his charisma and sex-appeal, he is often wrongly mistaken as one of those arrogant officers who feel are entitled to everything they want. He tends to make jokes even under red alarm condition, but overall he is a valid and reliable member of the Enterprise's crew. As he is one of the few who knew Kirk before the Academy hearing, he is both the shoulder Kirk turns to when he feels overpressured by the responsibilities of the hastened promotion and the one who doesn't shy away when there's the need to challenge Kirk during one of the captain's obstinate moods.

Computer systems officer: Lieutenant Junior Grade Gaila After miraculously surviving the destruction of the thrown together small fleet ambushed by the Narada in the Vulcan system, Gaila returned to the Academy to graduate and then was assigned to a survey vessel, the USS Tereshkova. Here, despite her skills leaning toward computers, she spends most of her days holed up in a science lab peering at samples. It is during a seemingly innocuous rendezvous with the Enterprise, where her brother serves, that in her life return both her academy roommate Uhura and her former lover Kirk. What was supposed to be few hours spent with her brother at the Tereshkova ship bar, turns into an abduction from their very estranged mother and the Enterprise is forced - against all regulations - to cross into Orion space to save the two Orion siblings. At the end, Gaila - following a suggestion from both her brother and Uhura - boldly asks Kirk if he'll accept her transfer request to the Enterprise. She and Kirk have a sit down and Kirk finally has the chance to apologize to Gaila for deceiving her, specifying that he indeed had initially became involved with her to gain access to the computer for the Kobayashi Maru simulation but that later he had come to really like her, and he's sorry for everything. Gaila accepts the apologies and decides that, with him risking his career by launching the Enterprise to the rescue of her and her brother, they are even. After some weeks of mutual embarrassment (failing to properly address the other by their rank instead of the personal name), they manage to resume a friendly relationship. Uhura takes her under her wing and soon Gaila is part of Uhura's circle, finding empathy especially in Nurse Chapel, with whom she shares a former lover who is now their commanding officer. In a blast of the past, she's offered the chance to return to a computer lab and she's assigned to the tutelage of Lieutenant 0718.

USS Enterprise mainframe conduit: Lieutenant Junior Grade 1701 With eyes the shape of the deflector dish glowing its exact hue of blue and the Aztect pattern decorating her pale gray skin, she’s the avatar of the Enterprise herself, self-created to facilitate direct humanoid communication between the computer and the crew – especially the captain. Initially self-named "Enterprise", she picked a form that would conform to the gender the crew assigned to the starship and characteristics from human females of Earth, as her place of birth is Riverside shipyard, Iowa. Her relationship with the captain is a close one: born out of a joke, from that one time Jim claimed to be married to the ship, she thinks of the captain as her “husband”, although there is no physical nor romantic desire in her, nor she attempts to get involved in Kirk's sexual or romantic life. Her origins are quite unique and marked strictly confidential. Unbeknownst to all technicians that worked to purge the computers from any leftover of the faulty M-5 unit, a flicker of that artificial intelligence had taken root in the Enterprise core systems. This presence lays dormant in the main computer for months, running in background, until it’s awakened by the attempt of an alien program to infect the ship. In its need to protect the systems as per its self-preservation instinct, the artificial intelligence merges with the alien program and takes control of the main computer, gaining sentience. When the crisis is over, and the Enterprise systems are officially clean from any infection, its too late to eradicate this new AI while traveling in deep space. The Enterprise has now a will of its own and it doesn’t want to loose it: desperate to plead its case against the decision to head to the nearest repair base for a full restore of the computers, it hijacks a surgical chamber to create an android body from synthetic tissues and carbon filaments. And thus “Enterprise” is born, a mix of a humanoid version of the hull and an Earth’s female. Initially she has complete mastery over the ship and all of its systems but she is convinced to relinquish her full control on the computers when she is faced with a complete report of the M-5 unit failure, how much dangerous is to leave command of a ship to a computer and the fact that the human factor is essential in the running of a starship. The battle against the USS Vengeance, and the following months in drydock for repairs, bring a big change in “Enterprise”, forcing in her the development of a more human-like consciousness in the face of Kirk’s sacrifice and some crew members refusal to abandon the dead ship. “Enterprise” fully achieves human sentience, discovers empathy and loneliness, pain and happiness, becoming less an android avatar and more a humanoid incarnation of a ship, capable of friendship and even love. The crew to her eyes is now part of herself, a family to protect at all cost, the captain her love to cherish. Unable to properly survive away from the Enterprise, Starfleet is faced with the ethical and moral dilemma of allowing the first ever android to serve or shutting it down by severing her link with the Enterprise’s mainframe. With her proving to have developed full sentience and after petition from Captain Kirk and his senior crew, Starfleet grants her a full identity under her chosen name of 1701 (the registry number of the Enterprise), born in Riverside the day of the Enterprise’s fateful christening, and the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade: she becomes the first android to ever become part of Starfleet. She accepted the moniker “Silver Lady” as the nickname the crew coined for the ship.

Captain's yeoman: Petty Officer Janice Rand Picking Starfleet over a career in singing, Janice was sent to the Enterprise two months after the starship left Earth for its official first mission in space, as the fifth in a string of failed attempts to assign the right person to the position of brand-new promoted Kirk's personal yeoman - her name suggested by none other than Admiral Pike. Firmly believing that a captain works best if they're shadowed by a yeoman that isn't only efficient and reliable but bold enough to argue and even dig their heels when necessary as well, Pike personally scoured the list of non-commissioned officers in search for the perfect person who could flank the young and inexperienced captain and wouldn't eventually want to punch, strangle or kill him before the end of the first week in the job like the previous four - thus the transfer requests. Very efficient and with a solid work ethic, Janice isn't one to shy away from danger, always eager to leave the ship for a mission planet side, where she showed plenty of times she knows how to hold her own. Her resourcefulness proved quite useful also to raise spirits, like the instance in which she used a phaser to heat a pot of coffee for the tired bridge personnel when power was out in the galley. She's also the only one person on the whole starship who managed to make Captain Kirk eat a bowl of salad, where even CMO McCoy failed: the feat, accomplished in her fourth day aboard, has become stuff of legends with time, contributing to building her reputation of woman that isn't wise to wrong, feared even by captain James "I don't believe in a no-win scenario" Kirk. Behind her fame, she's as sweet as down-to-earth as they could get, and it was with easiness that she quickly developed a close friendship with several crew members; for her, friendship is a high priority and she always looks out for the people she calls friends, to the point of carrying a tray full of food to a friend who missed mess call or checking out a ill colleague as soon as she has few minutes to spare from her duty. Although she has become the singing partner of Nyota Uhura, her most favorite hobby is painting: her arts hang on hers and some of her friends' quarters, as she likes to personally make the gifts she'll give to the people she's closer to, instead of buying one already made. Her iconic beehive hairdos have become her trademark: every morning she spends quite some effort into creating new and elaborate hairstyles that agree with her artistic personality, often picking details from her vast knowledge of the history of hairstyles on both Earth and other alien cultures she homages by always showing profound respect. In the rare instances in which she ties her hair up in a simple bun, photos are passed around in the Enterprise internal messaging system as a bad omen, with the level of simplicity used to rate the probability of risk of something bad to happen. She doesn't try to punch Kirk in the face, like Yeoman Attempt #3 nor she gets a mental breakdown trying to put up with the quirks and that pesky allergy to rules of their Chaotic Good captain, like Yeoman Attempt #1 but, despite Pike's hopes, Janice falls hard for the captain, but she's too professional to let this crush interfere with her duty and has accepted this will be a one-sided interest that will go nowhere. She's considering enrolling in Starfleet Academy when the five-years mission will end to undergo more training as a yeoman.

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Final version of an edit that had been modified too many times to even list. Ah ah, kidding. The final version came in March 2022, when I completely revamped the graphic to try to make these edit a bit shorter when there’s a big crew cast (to then discover Tumblr has upped the max height size to 3072 -.-). If you really, really want to see it, you find the original version here. Fixed M'Benga's name in November 2023 with the one established and made canon on screen.

Jaylah will definitely be kidnapped by Jim and the crew offered a position on the Enterprise as soon as she's finished the Academy, although by then the mission should be ended. :(

Notes Most of the non-canon (as in "non specified in the movies") bits for the main characters comes from either the Star Trek movie script, the Star Trek movie app, from the two IDW comics series or official novels, and can easily found on either Memory Alpha or Memory Beta. Rest is explained in the "addendum" post (see below).

About the "made up" roles Liaison Officer, Computer Officer, Armory Officer and Security Chief don't exist in either canon or non-canon Star Trek and were made up by me. See more at this post.

About assignments, ranks, names and other changes Since the post is already a very long textwall, these annotations have been collected at this additional post you can find here.

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Crossposted Livejournal: prue84.livejournal.com/55604.html Dreamwidth: prue84.dreamwidth.org/50839.html Deviantart: edit (deviantart.com/prue84/art/Star-trek-edits-AOS-crew-628649611) and text (deviantart.com/prue84/art/Star-trek-edits-AOS-crew-the-manifest-911521475)

[chernobog13]

LCARS display of the U.S.S. Yorktown.

[hazel-of-sodor]

Bakers Dozen: Liscensed Ships I want in Star Trek Online

Welcome back to Bakers Dozen! This time we return to Star Trek Online ships, but instead of canon, its liscensed. Simply put, 12 ships (and one honorable mention) I want in STO, that aren’t canon, but appeared in an offical Star Trek Product (Books, Comics, Games, Ect.)

1.Premonition Class 

Hailing from Star Trek Armada, The U.S.S. Premonition went back in time to warn the Enterprise E of an impeding borg invasion. I never had the full game, but I played the demo countless times. Just look at her. She aleady looks like an Sto ship. One of the most iconic Star Trek Video games ships, I think she would be a great ship to appear in the current arc time/multiverse themed arc.

2.Yorktown Class (ENT Era)

Long before Captain Seven of Nine commanded the enterprise, and even long before STO. There was a Yorktown Class Starship in Star Trek Legacy. Star Trek legacy was the first star trek game I owned, and the Yorktown was a favorite of mine. The battleship to the NX Cruiser, the Yorktown was a powerhouse in the 22nd century. She’d need a new name, as the current Enterprise in STO is a very different Yorktown Class, but we could always use more Enterprise era ships.

3.Belknap/Ascension Class

Quite possibly my favorite TMP Era design (yes including the refit) The Belknap from  Ships of the Star Fleet Vol. 1 is the Constitution Refit’s smaller agile cousin. Stripped of diplomatic suites and scientic labratories, the Belknap posseses the Constituion’s firepower in a more compact and agile frame.

A “Dreadnoght” version exists, the Ascension class, but it’s literally a Belnap with the third nacelle of a Federation classs refit, maybe to give her longer warp sustainability?

4.Andor Class

This TMP era missle cruiser was introduced with FASA, and I loved this odd ball. I could see her functioning as a TMP era defiant, a small ship darting in with heavy torpedo fire. Also more TMP is always a win

5.Archer Class

Apperaing in the Star Trek Vangaurd Novels, this was a tiny tos scout ship, with only a crew of 14, and still didn’t have enough room for personal bunks. Incredibly fast and agile, she was too small for turbolifts, instead only having ladders.  Pls let me 1v1 a cube with this smol ship. Also TOS Ships are always a win.

6. Aegis Class

The U.S.S. Aegis is the hero ship of Star Trek Bridge Crew, and my god what a gorgeous ship. STO needs more Kelvin ships, and what better one than a proper Hero ship that has her own games, and looks this good?

7.Romulan Warbird, Unknown Class

This Stormbird (Romulan D7) esk dreadnought appeared in the DC Star Trek Comics in the 80s. Decades later, younger me would find the comics as a kid, and fall in love with this oship. Romulan TMP Warbird? Sign me up! Pls?

Also this comic has this awesome shot

8.USS Dorothy Garrod

From the IDW Dicovery Comic, this Federation science vessel looks cool. Thats it. Thats all I know. Discovery rep is always a win.

9.D-18 Gull Class

A Klingon ship from Fasa, this is a troop transport. Its weird and I love it. I had a fried who 3d prints move the neck to the top of the secondary hull and flip the bridge module upside down for a more traditional look, but I dont have any good pics of her on hand.

10. Chandley Class

Speaking of troop transports, The Chandley is perhaps Fasa’s most popular ship, and its not hard to see why. Maybe Sto, could give her a boarding console. 

11.Saladin/Hermes

Orginally appearing in the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph, this ship has TOS and TMP varaints, as well as a Kelving timeline version from both the comics and Star Trek Fleet Command. Simple yet iconic, with so many flavors. Legendary Discovery Variant?

12.Insignia Class

This gorgeous ship originally was a fan design, then was included in the Ships of the Line calender. It later appeared in the TNG Waypoint comics as the ‘Chimer’ class...USS ENTERPRISE???

This version of the Enterprise served at the same time as the Enteprise E (ummmm?) and was commanded by Geordi La Forge.

The Chimer name sucks though. Insignia class is a way better name.

Honorable Mention:

Locknar class

Another Fasa Ship, this is an honorable mention bc it is kinda...maybe...canon?

In Lower Decks we she the USS Titan’s lineage wall...including what was confirmed to be a Locknar class USS Titan?

Yes I am a TOS/TMP nerd, how can you tell?

[thevalleyisjolly]

Star Trek Beyond ramblings under the cut, because I love this movie so much:

I was just watching Star Trek Beyond again, and it’s really just such a good ensemble movie.  It wasn’t a Kirk-is-the-hero movie or a Kirk-and-Spock movie, it was an Enterprise movie.  Everyone in the crew had roles, not just isolated moments of badassery or humour, but actual places in the narrative that showed off their character and development.  I mean, we see:

Bones being a doctor, what that actually looks like apart from waving a scanner around and jabbing people with needles.  How he interacts with his patient, the brusque bedside manner that nevertheless goes hand-in-hand with his genuine concern, improvising treatments when he doesn’t have the advanced tools he normally does.  Damn it, the man is a doctor, and he’s a good one, and we get to see that!

Sulu and Uhura taking initiative, being leaders!  Uhura putting herself at risk again and again to do what’s best for the crew, Sulu taking a leadership role with the surviving crew members and trying to keep them safe.  TOS Sulu eventually becomes a captain, and you can really see the echoes of those leadership skills emerging here.  And Uhura, separating the saucer to give the escape pods a chance, breaking out of the cell to send a distress signal, asserting what’s right and standing up to Krall.  In many ways, she gets the hero(ine) role that in the past, has been given to Kirk or Spock.

Spock’s more introspective side.  He spends a lot of the movie considering his place in the universe, his responsibilities, the legacy of Ambassador Spock, mortality.  He doesn’t Vulcan-logic up a genius plan in the nick of time to save the day, it’s a softer, more measured Spock we see here, and it’s fantastic.

Scotty being a mentor and a father-figure, reaching out to Jaylah and being a figure of kindness and encouragement and concern.  He saves the day in a different kind of way than whipping up an engineering miracle or three - he saves the day by reaching out to someone who was lonely and being a person who cares.

Chekov alone had less to do in the movie, but we still see him taking on leadership during the attack, making sure everyone on the bridge got in an escape pod safely, being the second last to abandon ship, only after everyone else had already gone.  It’s a far cry from the childish, almost comedic role he’s had so far.

Jim being a captain, not a hero.  When Commodore Paris congratulated him on saving Yorktown and he said that it wasn’t him, that really rang true.  Kirk spends pretty much the entire movie affirming and reaffirming that his crew is capable, that they achieve things together, and it’s something the movie’s structure reinforces as well.  More on that later.

And yes, the ensemble structure means that individual characters don’t get a ton of time focused on their own arcs, but you don’t necessarily need a lot of time in an ensemble movie, you just need to make effective use of what time you do have.  Which I won’t claim every character had amazing character moments, but there was pretty solid and consistent characterization throughout, and the characters who did have time to shine shone brilliantly.

The whole theme of this movie is, as Uhura asserted to Krall/Eddison, “strength in unity.”  It’s very much not an action/super hero type movie, where a single extraordinary individual saves the day.  It’s the crew of the Enterprise, working together to their respective strengths, that succeeds. 

Conversely, Krall/Eddison is strong so long as he still has his crew with them, but once he loses them, he loses his power.  While he still has Kalara and Manas, his plans proceed well - Kalara ensnares the Enterprise, Manas helps him get away to Yorktown.  Without them, he has no support.  The contrast of that final confrontation with Kirk, Kirk with the entire crew of the Enterprise talking to him, giving him instructions, providing back up, and Eddison, standing alone, dying alone and in silence amidst the emptiness of space.

I mean, that scene when the U.S.S. Franklin is facing the swarm, if you watch, it’s literally the entire crew coming up with the solution together.  One person has a realization, another follows that up with a suggestion, another builds on that, so on and so forth.  It’s all of them, talking together, that solve the problem.  No one person has all the pieces to the puzzle or some sudden mastermind plan, it’s everyone contributing what they have.

And I think that leads me into another thing that’s so great about this movie, is that it recognizes the competence and the ability of these characters.  When faced with danger, everyone knows their duties, everyone performs their duties with competence and skill, they’re not just cogs in a machine, but well-oiled cogs.  The movie respects these characters, respects their capabilities and their foibles and their development.

Which goes into this movie and legacy, and honouring what came before while growing into something new.  We see the impacts of previous events on these characters, we see that they mattered.  Someone else has already pointed out how the escape pods are called Kelvin pods - the destruction of the Kelvin in the first movie mattered, not just to Kirk, it mattered to Starfleet and they made damn sure that their crews should always have a chance to live.  The destruction of Vulcan and Spock wondering about his potential duties to his people - of course that’s going to be something that lingers!  The horrors of genocide aren’t just the immediate loss of loved ones, of a planet, it’s something that continues to have an effect on survivors’ lives and futures.

(There are the good legacies too, the bittersweet legacies.  Ambassador Spock’s belongings, that picture of TOS cast, ugh)

((Also, the core of Eddison being that he can’t move forwards from the past, from the legacy he was a part of, that he helped build.  Wanting things to stay the same - and the irony is that in trying to keep the universe at war, he changes himself so drastically from what he was.  And to have his legacy, his crew’s legacy, be changed by his actions.  As Commodore Paris said, “For generations, we taught that they were heroes.”  Now they’re a tragedy))

It’s interesting because both Spock and Kirk have storylines around questioning their place in the universe, of living with legacies and living their lives now.  And we have Kirk and Bones having that conversation at the start, Bones very keenly pointing out that Kirk has been living for his father for so long but not for himself, and then the movie switches gears and works out these feelings with Spock.

(Love how both of them end up having these conversations with Bones, give the man a gold star friend award)

And we don’t really see Kirk working through this, except we do.  Kirk doesn’t talk about it outside of his captain’s log or with Bones, but we have Spock’s conversation.  We see the static-y legacy of the Franklin, we see Eddison’s despair and rage in his captain’s log, we see the crew of the Enterprise rising up to the task, confronting the past and saving the present.  We see Jaylah face the trauma of her memories and find trust and belonging in others, we see old meeting new, loneliness and despair but also love and hope.

We see everything except Kirk’s own internal struggle (save for Chris Pine’s frankly stellar facial acting), but maybe we don’t need to.  Because everything Kirk wrestles with is everything we come to realize through the movie, and as much as we are watching what’s going on, so is he.

(See?  It is a Kirk movie in a way, in that his internal conflict inspires the overall themes in the movie.  But Kirk is also the audience, watching the tragedy of Eddison and the Franklin, seeing the crew, his crew, work together.)

Also, loved the unconventional character groupings.  We have Sulu and Uhura as a team, Kirk and Chekov, Scotty and Jaylah, and the absolute genius of Bones and Spock.  I wish all Star Trek Beyond scriptwriters a very pleasant evening for giving us the absolute gift of Bones and Spock together.  We have been so blessed.

[ship-o-rama]

Name: U.S.S. Yorktown

Registry: NCC-1717 Class: Constitution

Captain: Commodore Una

Affiliation: Starfleet

Year: 2269

Background: Fitted with a prototype cloaking device based on the designs stolen from the Romulans. The power requirements were enormous and often played havoc with their sensors. Commodore Una protested the measures enacted to combat the Romulans but was overruled by top brass. Travelled to Neutral Zone Monitoring Base 108 where they were received by the personnel there.

It didn’t take long before a message from another base reported a fleet of Romulan ships going past them, Yorktown rushed to investigate. The Romulan fleet cloaked as they approached and Yorktown did the same. Believing the fleet to be very close to them she had the ship’s cloak flicker for a moment, and they were hit with disruptor fire. The Romulan commander hailed them, informing them that this was now Romulan space, as ordered by the Praetor. The Romulans fired a new miasma weapon, a update to their feared plasma weapons, which Yorktown was just out of range of. Yorktown returned fire, guessing correctly that some of the ships were below the plane of the weapon, scoring three hits. More conventional weapons fire was exchanged, straining the ship’s system and overloading consoles. They were able to retreat under cloak.

They intercepted an unmarked starship crossing into Romulan space. Although a Klingon D7 in design, they assumed it to be Romulan,given what was known of the two Empires’ technological exchanges. They decloaked and fired immediately, striking a crippling blow, and the enemy ship jettisoned their damaged nacelle before cloaking. Una baited the other ship into attacking them again by dropping their cloak and shields. The other vessel took the bait but not the way they expected, they raised their shields, snapping the battlecruiser’s neck as the forward portions were inside their shield envelope. They demanded the battlecruiser’s surrender as the aft section of that ship was exploding. The remaining portion of the ship rammed the top of the Yorktown’s saucer, causing massive damage. 

Unbeknownst to both parties, their actions were being monitored by a cloaked Romulan ship, which beamed off the Yorktown’s bridge crew and the Klingon survivors prior to the ships colliding. The surviving senior officer (the first officer, who wasn’t on the bridge at the time) relocated backup crews in auxiliary control. They disentangled themselves from the Klingon wreck, and attempted to move away, but there was damage to key systems and power fluctuations across all decks. Yorktown was later taken to a Starbase for repairs.

Christine Chapel joined the medical staff in 2271.

In 2272 Yorktown was still under the command of now-Admiral Una. They had received partial upgrades to interior spaces such as the bridge and transporter room during their last refit.

Surveyed the forest moon of Sigma Thernia 3B, in the Orion sector. The landing party reported odd structures and mathematics being performed by the local insects and birds. When they left members of the landing party starting exhibiting unusual symptoms like dismantling consoles and heightened senses.

Responded to the Joanna’s distress call, a medical courier. They beamed aboard Leonard McCoy, Jon Duncan, Theela, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln from a twentieth-century equivalent warzone that had been supplied weapons by the Klingons and populated by clones made from a secret 1960s experiment back on Earth. They engaged the Klingon Kloor’s ship, with intent of disabling it, but as soon as it took at direct hit it self-destructed.

Theela and Jon Duncan made requests to stay behind on the planet, to help the inhabitants with the various medical sciences they desperately needed. Six Yorktown medical personnel also volunteered and the mission was approved by Starfleet Command. Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln used the transporter to return to their own time period.

The two crew members who’d experienced the earlier symptoms prior to the Joanna’s distress call died as if their brains exploded and a third one who wasn’t on the landing party started getting similar symptoms.

The infection quickly spread to over half the crew, and the effects were accelerating. McCoy along with Yorktown’s medical staff discovered a second intelligence living inside the brainwaves of those infected and once communication was established and the situation explained, the intelligence agreed to restrict itself until they returned to Sigma Thernia 3B where it could flourish again. It had been distraught by what it had done.

Appeared in Star Trek: Romulans Schisms, and Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor #3-4, IDW Comics

[todaysdocument]

Deposition of William Chandler regarding an alleged slave ship, 3/17/1846

He testifies that the ship carried rations for enslaved people--a pound of rice and a pint of water per person per day--as well as a 4 ½’ high space for them to be transported, each sitting between the legs of the next person.

File Unit: United States v. Nathaniel T. Davis, 3/17/1846 - 5/4/1846

Series: Criminal Case Files, 1790 - 1912

Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009

Transcription:

US                                                MARCH 17. 1846

vs

Nathaniel J. Davis                        Captain of Schooner Patuxent

                                                                Under act 10 May 1800 2 & 3

                                                                 Prohibiting carrying on slave trade

                                                                 1 Story laws 780

                                      William Chandler sworn- Is Lieutenant in U.S.N. - was attached in Sept. last to U.S.S. Yorktown - she was bound on her Southern cruise. Commander Bell was

Capt the Patuxent was first seen at Monrovia on or about the 25 Sept and was boarded by one of the Yorktown boats. She was only detained the usual time to make

the usual inquiries. I did not board her. Lt. [illegible] boarded her. She was again boarded the day afterwards at Cape Mount about 50 miles N.W. of Monrovia in the

afternoon or evening by the same officer. She was anchor close in with Cape Mount & the Yorktown at anchor near her - Comr Bell took possession of her & her paper, at about 9 A.M. of 27th Sept. I was ordered to the Patuxent about 1 P.M. to relieve Lt [illegible] & to  take command. I took her to  Monrovia the greater portion of the time in company with the Yorktown leaving Cape Mount on the 28th. I arriving at  Monrovia on 1st Oct & leaving again to meet the Yorktown & again arriving on 2 Oct. Left Monrovia on 4 Oct & arrived at N.Y. 9 March. Were compelled to pull into Bermuda twice -  Staid there 1st time one month repairing & the 2ᵈ time about 2 months during the whole time engaged in getting the vessel in a seaworthy condition. Davis the person now on examination was in command of the Patuxent when she was taken. I examined the vessel on the 29th but did not dis

[page 2]

turb the cargo or rather made a personal inspection.  She was from 90 to 100 tons.  I found 5 persons on board W. T. Davis the Master -- Thos l. Shaw the mate -- and Joseph Morrell, James C. .Clark & John Smith. --  The three men are now present.  That is about the usual number for a vessel of that size in the mercht service.  The men were very capable men & good seamen--

[left margin] Provisions [/left margin]I found a large quantity of provisions on board, beef, pork & bread.  There was quite enough to 15 men for 35 days and more than enough beef.  Some of the beef is yet unused.  I had been serving on the Yorktown about two months previous to the seizure--  Whilst on the station I have met with individuals who seemed to have a very good knowledge of the manner in which the slave trade was carried on.  I have principally derived my information from American Officers.  I should think 250 slaves might have been carried from Africa to Cuba in the Patuxent-- 25 days would be rather a long voyage than a short one-- I dont know how many men would be required to take charge of a cargo of that number of slaves.  8 or 10 persons more would have been quite sufficient.

[left margin]  do. Rice [/left margin]  We counted 71 bags of rice on board -- sacks of old canvass.  They averaged about 100 lbs apiece and over.  There was a tierce of 8 barrels of rice. full.  The barrels were common sized flour barrels.  The allowance for each slave is generally about a pound or pint of rice apiece.  A cargo of 250 slaves could have been subsisted 30 odd days on the amt of rice on board--  Rice & water is the usual food given the slaves.  It was African rice a good deal

[left margin] Water [/left margin] mixed with gravel & dirt.  There were 10 casks of water & 1 butt containing or capable of containing in all 1500 gallons.  In that hot climate a gallon a day to a man would be a liberal allowance for drinking, cooking & washing.  A pint is usually, as I have understood allowed per day

[page 3]

to each slave.  There were no other water casks in the vessel to my Knowledge.  I judge that 1500 galls of water is sufficient for a crew of 15 persons at a gall per day each for 30 days and at the rate of 1 pint per day for each slave for 250 slaves for 30 days.  The casks could be very easily filled on the Coast of Africa in the rainy season.  I shᵈ [should] judge they might have been filled in one night by spreading an awning.  It is not usual for vessels of that size to make such preparations for water.  It is not essential to a slaver to have a slave deck.-- We found 50 pieces of plank

[left margin] Plank  [/left margin]      of various lengths from 4 to 38 or 40 feet in length, most of it long: some 10 or 12 pieces of intermediate length-- This plank might have been laid as a deck in a very few minutes without either hatchet or saw without the slightest difficulty.  The plank was new deck plank about six inches wide & 3 inches thick  

[left margin] Stauncheons [/left margin]    The Stauncheons which we found on board the vessel were not all up and such as were up were not fixtures as is usual on board of vessels carrying cargo  This would afford a facility in laying a deck with planks -- Such a deck as this plank would make would be very useful in transporting a cargo of slaves,

[left margin] Arch of deck [/left margin]     more so than a permanent deck.  The beams of the deck were slightly arched so that the deck would be

[left margin] Deck frame [/left margin]      supported even without the stauncheons.  The deck frame seemed sounder than the rest of the vessel and from that I judged that it had been put in since the vessel was built-- Under the deck plank, I found a large quantity

[left margin] Pine plank [/left margin]       of pitch pine plank stowed  & billetted up so as to be level so that it would form a foundation for the deck plank on which it might have been laid by a few hands in a very few minutes-- I found also on board some six or seven tons of stone ballast stowed abaft the mainmast between that & the Cabin Bulkhead.

[page 4]

I found some pieces of chain in the holds. One piece about 8 fathoms & one about 5 fathoms. a small pair of chain [illegible] and a large number of assorted bolts such as come out of ships timbers rather larger than would come out of the Patuxent. a ring & bolt. some iron hooks also. a chest of old tools good for nothing. A number of spare pars ^4 spare sails ^ were found The deck could have been laid with the cargo she then had on board leaving a flush space of 4 1/2 or 5 feet under the deck. The slaves are stowed sitting, one within the legs of the other and 4 1/2 feet would have been ample. When the Patuxent was taken she was anchored about a mile from the shore.

(The Logbook of the Patuxent produced identified IS. Clark Master from June 19 1844 to 12 May 1845. Hiatus to 23 June 1845 when N. T. Davis is master. in the port of New York 26th June crew came on board. Captain, passengers & pilot went on shore Heading from N.Y. towards Coast of Africa 2 Augt. 1845. 7 a.m. made Cape Mount. 11 furled sails. Captain & passengers went on shore.

19 Augt. 1845 to 22 August Vessel lies at Cape Mount 22nd. Took in 3 passengers at Sulima for Sierra Leone. 24th at Sierra Leone. Capt. & 2 passengers went on shore.

Log Book of Brig Atalanta found on board identified 18 July 1844 commences. Johnston Martee. Heading from N.Y. to W. Coast of Africa. Arrived on coast & sailed up & down until Dec 24th 1844 Capt. told crew that vessel was sold to Capt. Canot of Cape Mount.

This last entry is in Capt. Davis's handwriting. There are other entries in the Book in his handwriting.

Is there a notorious establishment at Cape Mount for