Chapter Text
Acting Captain’s Log, Stardate 2258 point, uh, something. The Enterprise is heading home, slowly, without warp capability since it was necessary to detonate the warp core to escape the singularity. The ship is badly damaged. As for the crew…. We were cadets last week. Most of us have no idea what the hell we are doing. We have exactly three officers onboard who have ever served on a Starship. One is unconscious and may never walk again; one is emotionally compromised; and one is technically AWOL from his post. I honestly have no idea what any of us will face when we get home,
Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, Starfleet Communications Officer, xenolinguist, and apparently a senior officer on this ship of children, spotted the vagrant or engineer or whatever the hell he was sitting in a corner of the mess hall. Kirk had dragged him in, mysteriously, impossibly and, bizarrely, soaking wet. And he had immediately saved all their lives, and yes, okay, worked like hell since then to get the ship limping home, but she didn’t like him. She stomped over to him; time for some answers.
“Scott?” she asked.
“Aye,” he said, unfolding his arms and opening his eyes. “Montgomery Scott. Scotty, tae my friends.”
“Well … Mr. Scott,” she said deliberately, and he grinned at her, not minding the dig. “Are you actually a Starfleet officer, or did you just put on a red shirt with Lieutenant Commander stripes and take over our engine room? Since that’s how promotions apparently work on this ship.”
“No, just a passerby who can beam onto ships at warp and blow up warp cores,” he said sarcastically. “Of course I’m a Starfleet officer. I have been for 15 years. I really am a lieutenant commander, which best as I can tell, makes me acting second officer at the moment. I’ve served on four ships, been chief or assistant chief on two, led an experimental tech design team at Starfleet Engineering, and taught at the Academy. I have four doctorates, six classified patents, three commendations for valor, and two court martial acquittals for conduct unbecoming an officer, both of which I’m actually guilty of. And I’m fairly certain I saved everyone on this ship yesterday. Good enough for yeh, Lieutenant?” he asked, an edge to his voice.
“Arrogant bastard too,” she said, and he shrugged. “Is that what got you assigned to an iceball in the middle of nowhere?” she challenged, and he smiled at her again, a little sharply.
“Aye, that and a wee incident with a dog.”
“A ... dog?” she asked distastefully, and he laughed and pointed an accusing finger at her.
“And a transporter. God, you went there, nae me. Is your mind always that dirty?”
“You’re pretty chipper for a guy about to get court martialed for being AWOL,” she said sternly.
“Oh, nae just AWOL,” he said dismissively. “Stowing away on a Federation Starship. Insubordination. Destruction of Federation property. I’m probably going tae prison.” He smiled up at the ship. “Worth it. Also, I’ve got this equation in my head— apparently invented by an alternate future version of myself, which is very interesting—and it solves transwarp beaming but it also solves everything else. Our warp equations are wrong. We’ve always known that they are wrong. Tae make the maths work with observed reality we had tae write errors into them. People have argued with me about it, but writing an error intae an equation means you’ve got it straight wrong. And I’ve figured it out. It’s space that’s moving. It fixes everything.We are going to have tae completely reconfigure our thinking about the entire physics of faster than light travel. So aye, you’ll forgive me if I’m a wee bit excited.”
Uhura smiled at him despite herself; the guy was practically bouncing off the walls. “Do you always talk this fast, Mr. Scott?”
He smiled ruefully, and there was something in it she couldn’t quite parse. ”Not as a rule, but it’s been an odd week,” he said. “And I’ll confess tae being maybe a wee bit mad.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “Not tae be rude, lass,” he said tiredly. “I was actually trying tae sleep here. I‘m fairly bad at it even on good days, and I havenae slept in 48 hours. I’m not assigned to this ship, and dinnae have any quarters.”
She stared at him. “Which means you don’t have meal card access either. You haven’t eaten in two days?
“I havenae eaten in three days; different issue, we ran out of everything but protein nibs at the outpost a few days ago. We were supposed tae get a shipment, but the ship that was supposed tae bring it got destroyed above Vulcan, I think.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” she asked, shocked.
“Not a priority,” he shrugged. “Not for nothin’, but I think Kirk may have the same problem.”
“I’ll get it sorted,” she sighed.
“Not your job, lass,” he answered, settling back and closing his eyes.
“Scotty to your friends?” she asked, and he opened his eyes again and smiled at her.
“Aye.”
“I’m going to get you a sandwich, a beer, a blanket, and then I’ll get it sorted out. I’m Nyota Uhura. Good to meet you, Scotty.”
“Nyota,” he said warmly. “Assuming they don’t throw my arse in the brig until I die, this might just be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Captain’s Log, Stardate 2258.40. Boldly go.
Uhura wasn’t sure who in the admiralty had decided that giving Kirk, of all people, a diplomatic assignment right out of the gate was a good idea, but here they were. And, as expected, it was a disaster, although to be fair, it wasn’t Kirk’s fault.
The first contact team had made a mistake, and a bad one, confusing the broadly spoken daily language for the language of formal matters. And the two languages were not remotely the same. They were fortunate that the species considered it amusingly and merely mildly insulting, rather than deeply insulting.
Uhura had left manning the communications station on the bridge to her deputy, and was ensconced in the small communications office with the rest of the communications staff and about half of the programmers from Engineering, pouring over the words in real time and trying to feed data into the universal translator matrix in Kirk’s ear as quickly as possible while also trying to re-translate almost a thousand pages of treaty documents. It was the work of six months, with a 24 hour deadline.
She heard the door slide open behind her, and a stack of vegan snack boxes from the mess hall materialized at her elbow.
“God, thanks Mr. Scott,” she said gratefully, taking one and passing the rest down to her frazzled staff.
“Drink orders?” the second officer called.
“Bourbon?” someone called, to general laughter.
“A hell of a lot of coffee,” Uhura corrected. “Although I heard a rumor that you had a kettle and some real tea?”
“I’ll be back,” he said with a wink.
She laughed when he reappeared a few minutes later and handed her a teacup, complete with saucer. “I wasnae sure where you were on the great coffee/tea divide,” he said. “I figure a Kenyan could go either way. I have a big box of the real stuff and, aye, a kettle. None of the starship synthesized shite.”
“My grandmother makes the most amazing tea,” she said wistfully. “It has to be done properly or it isn’t worth the time. Too many years in San Francisco means entirely too much coffee.” She took a sip and sighed happily. “Oh, yes. Trust a Scot to get tea right. My bibi would approve.”
She turned back to the mountain of work, and he passed out coffee and the weird, syrupy soda that the synthesizer couldn’t get quite right, but was drinkable (according to North Americans) with enough ice.
“Isn’t food service a little below your pay grade?” Uhura asked, catching his sleeve as he turned to go.
“Sitting still above a planet in a brand-new Starship,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing for me tae do but spell Mr. Spock on the bridge and deliver caffeine tae the people doing the real work today. Let me know if you need the rest of the programmers and I’ll set them up in auxiliary control.”
“I think we’re fine, but thank you, sir,” she said. “For the food, and the tea, and remembering us down here.”
He smiled at her. “That’s what I’m here for. Give me a yell, if I can help.”
Captain’s Log, Stardate 2258.98. The Enterprise has arrived at New Vulcan to assist in setting basic infrastructure. Beyond that report, I don’t know that any of us have the words for this.
Spock had asked for permission to beam down to New Vulcan first and alone, which the Captain had immediately agreed to. At least he’d had something to say, even if it was simply “yes, of course Spock.”
Nyota was a linguist, fluent in dozens of languages. She was his girlfriend. She shared his life; his bed. And she could not find the words. She was pacing the transporter room, for he had asked her to beam down a few minutes after he did. “I believe,” Spock had said, “your presence may be grounding.” And if that wasn’t Vulcan for ‘help me,’ she didn’t know what was.
Scott was at the transporter controls. He didn’t have to be; it wasn’t a complicated beam-in. He probably should have been in the cargo bay, continuing to organize the massive project he was about to be overseeing. Instead, he was watching her pace.
“Don’t you have something else to do?” she growled at him.
“Quite a lot,” he said, rightly shrugging off her irritation as misplaced tension.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “Not to Spock. Not to his father. Not to the High Council. Not to …” she paused; it was massively classified and she wasn’t really supposed to know about it.
“The future alternate reality version of our first officer?” Scott supplied.
“Right,” she said, slumping against the wall. “I forgot you knew about that. I don’t know what to say to any of them. ‘So sorry about your planet’ just doesn’t quite capture the depth and tragedy of the thing.”
“I dinnae imagine you’re meant to say anything,” Scott said.
“So I just stand there and look pretty?” she snapped. He gave her a look, and she sighed. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”
“Look, lass, there are a hundred thousand of tons of equipment in the cargo bay to get down to the surface that I should probably be staging. But I dinnae want Mr. Spock to be beamed down to what is supposed tae be his new homeworld by whatever transporter officer happened tae be on rotation. If I could put him down on the planet just a wee bit more gently, that’s worth it. Maybe not that he’d notice; maybe not that it even matters. It’s all I’ve got. There’s nothing tae say to fix this. We just give what we can.”
“And the reason you’re still here, instead of calling in a tech to beam me down …?”
He smiled at her. “We give what we can,” he repeated, and glanced down at the panel when it beeped. “And you're givin’ quite a lot, just by standing next tae him. Mr. Spock is ready for yeh.” She took her place on the pad, and he gestured at the shoulder of his uniform tunic and the small control switches worked into the material. “Dinnae forget tae turn on your environmental control; it’s 41 degrees down there. Gravity a touch higher too. I’ll put you down easy but watch your first step.”
“Thanks, Scotty,” she said gratefully. “See you down there.”
“Aye,” he said. “Energize.”
It had gone well, of course, the Vulcans unfailingly polite and grateful for her presence, if somewhat puzzled about why Spock had asked her down ahead of the construction group. Still, she’d been glad when Scott had arrived with half of the Enterprise’s operations crew and his tons of equipment, including a high-powered communication relay that he’d left to her to assemble. It was something concrete to do, even if she was now sweating profusely through her climate controlled tunic.
She was grumbling in Swahili at a finicky connection when an aged but still-familiar voice greeted her.
“In my universe, you appreciated a lightly fermented Vulcan tea, which, in a human way that used to puzzle me, you then sweetened and poured over ice. I have taken the liberty of bringing you some prepared as she preferred.”
“Ambassador Spock!” she said, scrambling to her feet, and yes, he was smiling at her. She took the tea, a little shell shocked and—
“This is wonderful,” she said, immediately refreshed and delighted by her drink. “I apparently have excellent taste; I’ll have to remember this.”
“She always enjoyed it,” the Ambassador said, a little wistfully. His hands were clasped behind his back; a Starfleet parade rest so well-worn that it might as well have been the line of his brow or the color of his eyes.
“It must have been some time since you saw her last,” Uhura said, and god this was an eerie conversation to be having.
“Yes,” the elder Spock acknowledged, sitting on a chair she’d pulled in to work on the relay. “Though you may be assured that her life was long and extraordinary.”
“This must be strange for you, she said, sipping her drink. “It must have been so long since you saw any of us.”
“Some longer than others. Some left us before their time, while others broke longevity records purely, I think, out of spite.”
“Kirk, and McCoy, in that order,” she said softly, a bit shocked at how well she could read his voice. A complete stranger, and so, so profoundly not. He smiled at her again, if sadly, and she wondered how long it had taken before emotion was easy on his face.
The ancient Vulcan sat forward, and began working on the communications relay with impressively practiced hands. “It is good to see you all,” he said. “Not yet with the wisdom of your years, or the full development of your extraordinary friendships, but so full of your youth. Most of you have been gone half of my lifetime, now. Although there is one member of the crew remaining, who helped build the ship I arrived in. His sudden presence in the late 24th century was unexpected but ultimately unsurprisingly to those of us who knew him. He is gone again, but would be nearly as angry that the ship we built was destroyed as he would be at my failure to return.”
And that was more than enough to tell her who it was.
The man himself, or a version of him, came walking through the door of the communications tower, sweat-soaked and plastered with red dust. “Lass, we’re ready with power if you are …” Scott called out, tossing down a tool bag and pulling off his construction helmet and ear protection, then drew up short. “Ambassador, my apologies. I didnae know you were here.”
“He was helping me with the relay, and brought me a drink I didn’t know I loved,” Uhura answered, turning back to the communications relay to finish the connections. “Give me a second, Mr. Scott.”
“He does bring interesting gifts from the future,” Scott said cheerfully, swiping at his face with his sleeve in a futile attempt to wipe the dirt away. “If he has any others, of the mathematics variety, I’d love to hear them.”
“I suspect, Mr. Scott, that like your counterpart, transwarp beaming will provide you the necessary key to future breakthroughs.” Spock said. At Scott’s look of hesitation, Spock continued, “or perhaps current ones.”
“Two weeks ago we got to a planet to help with a plague impossibly fast,” Uhura volunteered. “He did something that had Kirk gleeful and Spock … you, whatever … worried.”
The elder Spock inclined his head gravely. “In my time, you came to the answers much later in life, when you were more tempered and less trusting. I would advise caution, Mr. Scott. Less, perhaps, in the use of your ideas than the reporting of them.”
“You dinnae trust Starfleet,” Scott said quietly. “I didnae.” Spock merely raised an eyebrow. Scott nodded and looked away. “Right,” he said, clapping his dusty hands together to change the subject. “I have the solar power system up and ready to bring power in. Although, Ambassador, I’ll mention again that we could get you a stronger power source. I know the high council is nae interested in a fusion reactor because of the emissions, but I have a small matter/antimatter reactor here with us.”
Spock shook his head. “The solar power system is sufficient for our needs. And I fear that we no longer have engineers capable of looking after a matter/antimatter reactor.”
Scott blew out a breath at the reminder of how decimated the Vulcan population was. “I spent four months on Vulcan, a fellowship studying matter/antimatter engineering. Nae the easiest four months of my life, but some of the most educational. None left …” he mourned.
Uhura had finished on the relay. “Ready, Scotty.”
He tossed her an acoustic marker and settled his helmet back on his head. “Mark the floor where I need tae bring the power conduit up, then mind your feet, I’ll cut through with a plasma torch.
“I will take my leave,” Spock said. “I confess that after a lifetime in space, the heat is draining. Will we expect to see you at the dinner tonight? Your presence would honor us.”
“I will be there,” Uhura promised.
“I hadnae planned on it,” Scott confessed.
“He’ll be there too,” Uhura continued smoothly.
“It seems I have my orders,” Scott said, amused.
“I always found it best to be guided by her wise counsel, whether as a lieutenant, a commander, a captain, an admiral, or my friend,” the ancient Vulcan agreed, and exited with a nod.
“That’s a hell of an endorsement, and a hell of a future,” Scott said with a smile.
“You should hear about yours,” she answered. “Let’s get this done.”
“It’s damn near 48 degrees in the crawl space. So you can imagine how much I’m looking forward to turning on a plasma torch,” he grimaced. He slid through an access hatch, and she tracked him as he worked from the bangs and curses beneath the floor. She stepped back from the superheated stream of plasma as it punched a hole in the floor. “I’m going tae hand this up to you, lassie,” he called through the opening, contorting a shoulder to pass her a wide bunch of cabling.
“Got it,” she called down to him.
“Pull, hard as you can, I’ll feed up a couple meters of slack. Tell me when it reaches the relay.”
They both struggled for a few moments; the cables were heavy and stiff. “We’re there,” she finally shouted to him, and started the final connections while he squirmed out of the crawl space.
“Good lord, that’s hot,” he said, and pulled a liter of water from his pack, drinking it in less than a minute.
“You’re a mess,” she told him, amused, and he grinned at her. “I’ve got this connected, if you’re ready.” He nodded and vanished outside again, to the main power box. A moment later the relay came to life. She tapped several test commands, then sent a signal to Earth. New Vulcan Communications Relay One online. Confirm receipt. A moment later, after a round trip of dozens of light years, a response pinged back. Confirmed.
“We’re up and running, Mr. Scott.”
“Good work, Lieutenant,” he said, collecting his gear.
“What’s next?” she asked as they walked back toward the main settlement.
“Depends on when we’re supposed tae be presentable for dinner.”
“1900 hours,” she answered.
“Then you can take your pick. Most of the Vulcans have been living in tents. I have crews puttin’ together housing. It’s careful work; they have aesthetic specifications that are important to them, as you know. Chekov’s working on a water purification and recycling plant. Sulu on a greenhouse and farm unit. McCoy on the medical building. The ecologists and planetary terraforming specialists are setting up sensor units. My lads and lasses from engineering are running power conduits and pipes tae everything.”
“We’ll be here a month,” Uhura said.
“Pretty easily, unless Starfleet pulls us first.” He hesitated. “We’re runnin’ around here like ants. Full o’ direction and purpose, bangin’ around on things. And I almost feel like a construction crew trying tae build in the middle of a mausoleum, surrounded by mourners too polite to tell us to bugger off. The Federation wants this done, for its oldest and most important member. But I’m worried about them. About the Vulcans. They feel … I dinnae ken. Fragile. Transparent.”
“How psi sensitive are you?” Uhura asked, shooting him a look.
He shrugged. “A touch higher than most on pre-cog, but otherwise just the usual baseline human empathic levels.”
“Well, you’re not wrong,” she answered with a sigh. “Their agony is so thick that even nearly psi-deaf people like you and me can pick it up. This really could not have happened to a worse species. If we’d lost Earth, humanity would have been traumatized and angry and reeling, but there are 500 million of us out in the stars. We would have spit in the faces of our enemies, had a hell of a lot of revenge sex, and spread through the universe until we were on every backwater planet in every corner of the galaxy. Earth is our cradle but not our heart. Vulcan was the anchor of their species. Spock is an exception; they didn’t leave it often, which is why there are so few left. The planet was the heart of the living and the vessel for the souls of their dead. I’m not sure if they’ll survive without it. Any of them,” she said softly, her mind clearly going to her particular Vulcan.
“It is pretty here, though,” Scott said, pausing to look at the towering, twisting red-rock spires just beyond the town. “Stark, and hot as hell, but pretty. It’s been less than a year. It’s asking a lot of them tae be healed and whole. Maybe we just give ‘em some time, and they’ll be okay. All of ‘em,” he said, bumping her shoulder companionably. “I’m off tae pull cables through the blazing hot sun.”
“I’m going to work on helping with the home construction, I think,” she said.
“Good choice,” he said, heading off. “See yeh.”
The dinner had been lovely after a very hard day of work, marked with the honor, she knew, of some of the last food and drink from the fallen world. Scotty had taken his leave as early as was polite, looking more exhausted then she’d ever seen him, tossing her a weary smile before he went.
Ambassador Spock stood near the Captain and McCoy when he could, speaking softly to them. They listened politely, attentively, a little awkwardly. She watched, and her jaw dropped when the Ambassador intentionally baited McCoy, who responded as he usually would, until he remembered exactly who he was speaking to.
Spock, her Spock, slipped in behind her and took her hand. “There is a question that humans sometimes ask each other,” she told him. “A thought exercise, for fun. ‘If you could spend one hour in the company of anyone, living or dead, who would it be?’ I get the feeling that the Ambassador is precisely where he would choose to be.”
“I know you are right,” he said. “For I am as well. Come away with me?” he asked her quietly, and tugged her into the rapidly cooling night. “My father’s house,” he said, “if you have no objection?”
“If your father has none?” she asked.
“My father knows what it is to love a human woman,” Spock answered.
She followed him into the darkened guest room, but once there, he paused, seeming to reconsider the wisdom of his plans. She took the lead instead. He blinked at her while she unbuttoned his dress uniform and tugged off his trousers, followed by her own clothing. She guided him to sit on the edge of the bed, where he looked up at her, his eyes dark with sorrow and arousal. She traced the angles of the face, down his chest, then dropped to her knees between his legs.
“We have never been together, with Vulcans near,” he said softly. “You need to know. They will not see what I see. But they will … know what I feel.”
She kissed the inside of his thigh, her breath hot against his skin. “Are there any others doing this tonight?” she asked as he carded his fingers through her hair.
He closed his eyes. “On the planet? No. Their hearts are still too broken. On the Enterprise? The Vulcans can feel the human empathic field above us, in orbit. Individually, human psi abilities are too weak to discern, but collectively there is a very real human empathic connection. On the ship, tonight, and every night? Yes. Human passion.”
Nyota reached up and took his hands between her own, her chin on his knee while she looked up into his eyes.
“Will this help them, or hurt them?” she asked gently.
“Both, Nyota,” he said softly.
“Will this help you, or hurt you?”
“Both,” he admitted shakily. “And with their grief so near the doors of my mind, I do not know that I will be able to give anything back to you. You do not have to do this,” he said.
She smiled up at him. “Of course I don’t. But will you let me give this to you?”
He cupped her face, thumbs stoking her temples, then leaned back on his hands, opening himself to her. “Please,” he breathed, and she did.
She took him to his edge with hands and lips and tongue, then slipped onto him at the end, wrapping her legs around his waist. He pulled her to his chest and there were tears on his face.
She eased him onto the bed, and he spooned her into the curve of his hip. She hooked a heel back over his knee, letting her legs drop open, intending to finish herself with the feel of his arousal cooling against her back. But his hand joined hers, and she was closer than she’d thought, unraveling completely with his breath on her neck.
Vaguely, at the edge of sleep, like a shadow in the deep night, she also felt the remains of a species holding her gently. “Thank you,” someone whispered, “thank you,” and she wasn’t sure if it was Spock, or them.
Captain’s Log, Stardate 2258.290. Day 18 of a six month hop into an uncharted section of space. Our first mission on the Enterprise that isn’t just patrolling Federation space, dropping supplies to colonies, or serving as a ferry service for ambassadors. Real exploration, and a chance for this crew to prove what it’s really made of. It’s times like this when we begin to realize just how vast space is. The Federation, and our allies, and our enemies are located within a few hundred light-years in a corner of the galaxy. That we can point a ship in one direction, travel just twelve weeks, and encounter things we’ve never seen before is humbling. And demonstrates clearly the need for a five-year mission.
“I’m sorry, you’re going tae what?” Scott asked, looking dumbfoundedly at his still-new Captain. He shot a look at Uhura, who just shrugged in her own clear frustration. “The Captain, the First Officer, and the Chief Medical Officer are beaming down. Together. Tae an unknown planet. At the same time?”
“Right,” Kirk said easily. “You’re in command until we get back, Lieutenant Commander. You are the second officer, after all.”
Scott looked cautiously sideways at Spock. “Isnae this the part of the conversation where you’re supposed to cite some regulations, sir?” he asked.
“I have already done so,” Spock said serenely, but did not elaborate on exactly why he seemed fine with three of the four most senior officers on the ship all being away from it. Leaving him in command without a single other officer onboard above the rank of lieutenant, and without a chief science officer, a chief medical officer, or frankly, a chief engineer since his arse was stuck on the bridge.
“Okay then,” Scott said, although he still couldn’t quite believe it. “Would you like me tae get on the controls and beam you down too, Captain?”
The Captain chose to ignore the sarcasm “Sounds good,” Kirk said. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back before you notice we’re gone!”
They were not.
“This is my life now,” Scott said wearily to Uhura fourteen hours later, rubbing his eyes. “Isnae it? They beam off the ship, get intae immediate trouble, we fall under attack or some such nonsense, and I get tae sort it out using a kettle, some string, and zero information about what the hell is going on.”
“Sorry, Scotty,” she commiserated, standing as her relief on the communications board came in.
“You going down to sickbay to check on them?”
“I was going to, yes,” she said.
“Please kick their arses while you’re there,” Scott grumped.
“Is that an order, Commander?” Uhura asked.
“Aye.”
“You are aware that they all outrank me?” she asked.
“Never stopped you before, lass,” Scott replied.
She could be amused, now. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were going to be fine after a night under observation in sickbay. Three hours ago, in the midst of dodging missiles getting lobbed at them from the surface and a desperate scramble to find their missing and imprisoned crew, it hadn’t been amusing at all. Scott had proved himself as impressive and creative a commander as he was an engineer; her lingering doubt about his appointment as the second officer, unspoken to anyone but Spock, had entirely vanished. The Alpha bridge crew had remained at their posts through the crisis, but now Gamma Shift was filtering in, replacing everyone but the man in the center chair.
“Need some food, Mr. Scott?” Uhura asked him sympathetically.
“No,” he complained. “Why the hell would I need food? Or sleep? Or senior officers?” Uhura rolled her eyes at him, and sent a yeoman to the mess hall to collect a sandwich and some tea.
“I could relieve you, sir?” Sulu said hesitantly.
Scott stood to stretch and pace. “You’ve been on duty as long as I have, and dancin’ with the helm the whole time tae keep us out of trouble. Besides, we’re already far afield of regulations without compounding it in the log by having no senior commander awake for the shift. Get some rest.”
“I’ll take four hours,” Sulu said firmly. “Then I’ll be up to relieve you, regulations be damned.”
“I’ll be back at the start of Alpha, and then I’ll relieve you so you can get a full shift off, Sulu,” Uhura volunteered. “And I’ll re-juggle the roster to get some rest for everyone who has been on duty for more than two shifts.”
“Kirk has been a terrible influence on all of yeh,” Scott said fondly, sitting again and gratefully taking the food the yeoman delivered. “Makin’ up your own rules as yeh see fit. Oh, assuming Chekov isnae already asleep in his rack, will one of you tell him he did a good job hopping between science and engineering?” He gestured over his shoulder. “Out, go.”
Uhura paused beside his chair, and he smiled up at her. “Stop standin’ here bothering me,” he said softly. “Get down tae sickbay so you can look at him with your own two eyes and confirm his continued presence in the universe.”
“Thanks, Scotty,” she said quietly, her hand on his arm, which he reached over and patted. “Thank you for bringing him home.”