Jamie Blackthorne sits at the bar and sips his whisky as two new command crews bond. Beside him, Saavik sips her own small dram, putting paid to the old story that Vulcans don’t drink.
Well, maybe not. Maybe only Vulcan-Romulans do.
He feels a warmth surge throughout his body as the captain of one of those ships joins the other captain and him.
Chandra, unlike Saavik, takes his arm in her hands and leans against his shoulder. Together the three of them watch as the bonds that had been formed together on a training cruise a decade before, expand and form a new life, among two starships, along with a few new members.
At least one of those bonds—the one with a distinctive Deltan name—is a bit closer than the one of friendship and shared danger formed with the Vulcan-Romulan sipping her whisky. Saavik watches her first officer, Kaylin Stone-Hunter; her security officer, Jade Salieri; the Free Agent’s junior officer, Siobhan Lincolnton; and a young ensign, Decker Sinclair pour their shots of whisky into four huge beer mugs and lift them, racing to the finish.
New beginnings are different for everybody, Croft thinks.
He feels Chandra tug on his arm with a very pointed look at him.
Saavik keeps her eyes on the command crews of the USS Yorktown and the USS Titan. She sees individual members of the older bond start to peel off in ones and twos and follow their captain and the Free Agent, or at least their example.
She notices that her first officer has edged out the other two in the race. As it should be, the Romulan half thinks. Kaylin sways a bit, but keeps her feet.
As she contemplates their shared future, born in fire and death at the end of the universe, she shoves the memories of the past to the back of her mind.
A darker past, bringing a bright future.
Maybe only the current beginning matters. The other beginning was a foundation, as this one will be for that bright future.