[NVC Day 30] -- [Return to the Enterprise] -- [Open Post!]

[kirktastic]

(OOC: This is an OPEN POST for anyone who desires it to bring themselves up to the Enterprise. Feel free to use it like a party post if needed, but this is an official/IC post!)

Exactly one month after they had arrived on Sha'Kwai, they were leaving. Early in the morning, Jim and Bones pulled themselves out of sweaty sheets and apart from each other, little marks that could all be hidden beneath their uniforms littering their bodies. The shower, the last time they would have unending hot water for a long while, got put through its paces just as much. Jim hoped that the little squeak in the door wouldn't be noticed from where he had been holding onto it while Bones was sucking him off.

Clean, in pressed uniforms, and feeling decent, the two of them and all of their stuff beamed back up to the Enterprise.

There was no change in the gravity and only a minimal change in temperature when they reformed, and Jim was pleased. Over three weeks, it had been decided, the gravity would be lightened back to normal and the temperature lowered until it was back to normal regulations. It would be easier on everyone's bodies that way. Jim had every plan to work to make sure that the muscle he had gained while on Sha'Kwai stayed on his body - damn his abs looked good. Bones seemed to approve too.

Once he had gone through the ship, checking in to make sure everything was set, he sent out the notice to the entire crew.

Captain Kirk to crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise,

The Enterprise is ready to set sail again. Begin returning to the ship immediately. The ship will be leaving space dock tonight at 17:00 precisely, so you will be required to be on ship by then. If there are any concerns or issues, please send a message directly to me. All crew will be accounted for upon transport, and you will be given your room assignments and schedules that have been provided by your supervisor.

Please be advised that there have been changes in room and ship layout, and along with this message you have been provided maps with keyed changes to the ship's layout. Be familiar with them as soon as possible. If there are any troubles with rooming assignments, please direct your messages to the ship's new quartermaster, Lt. Commander Aurelan Jira. Attached is the new crew roster as well.

If you are new to the Enterprise or otherwise require: you will report immediately to sickbay after transport. There will be people bringing baggage to your new room assignment if it is required. There are no exceptions with this mandatory check up from the CMO, Doctor Leonard McCoy.

We'll be heading straight to Starbase 69 to drop off those that require transport there. It will be a sad goodbye to the people that have arrived from other universes and have decided to remain there, and I give a nod towards Christine 'Tina' Chapel and wish her good luck, but as it stands, they are only beginning their own adventures.

I'm looking forward to our future adventures together,

Captain James T. Kirk.

Attached File: ship_layout_2259111.im, crew_roster_2259111.dc

Comments

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

It was impossible to miss, for someone who had relied upon his wits for survival for as long as John had, the fact that something had changed. He'd wondered idly why there were so many humans (or so it seemed; appearances could be deceiving, and he tried not to assume anything) on a Vulcan colony. Now, suddenly, all the humans he saw seemed to be anticipating something. Some of them seemed excited, some resigned, some relieved. More tellingly, though, they were all suddenly in uniform.

He stopped a young woman in a blue dress and asked her what was going on. "We're leaving orbit today," she said. "You're not assigned to the Enterprise, then? We're starting our five-year mission." John thought he heard an unspoken finally at the end of that sentence.

So, a ship full of humans was leaving. Staying on this planet certainly wasn't going to get him home; the vortex manipulator wasn't designed for transuniversal travel, which was why it had broken in the first place. He liked his chances more if he got off this planet, particularly if the ship he was on was the exploratory kind. He might even run into the sort of rift anomaly that could take him home.

"I guess I'd better go pack, then," he said cheerfully to the girl. Not that he had much; just the bears and a few changes of clothes he'd acquired. With a few more questions, he managed to ascertain how they were getting back to their ship--a beam-up site not too far from where they were.

"Who are you, again?" she asked, a little late--she'd already told him what he wanted to know, suspicion wasn't going to do her much good.

He waved his scrap of crumpled, worn psychic paper at her, and she narrowed her eyes. "It's okay, I'll put in a good word for you," he said brightly. He offered a salute, which she returned by reflex, and he left to get his bears.

He found the beam-up site easily, and stepped onto the pad with enough confidence--or perhaps it was that his jacket was nearly the same color as the uniforms of the officers beaming up with him--that the transporter operator didn't look twice at him. The fairy bears in their terrarium tucked under his arm flapped their wings nervously as the hum of the transporter beam enveloped them.

The transporter bay where he ended up was marginally less dimmer than the daylight on the planet, but not much. The ship was astonishingly well-lit, in stark contrast to the gloomy Narada. He stepped off the pad with the officers.

[anon-crewperson.livejournal.com]

An officer stepped forward as Hart came off the pad, just as an officer was stepping up to each other person. "Rank and name, sir?" It was an older woman who eyed Hart's clothing with what seemed to be a sense of amusement. "Have fun while down on the planet?" In her hands was a PADD, prepared to pull up his necessary information.

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

"Captain John Hart," he told her cheerfully. "I had a great time, we should visit Sha'kwai more often."

[anon-crewperson.livejournal.com]

She smiled to him, nodding. "Seems like a good place." She entered in his information, and frowned slightly. "I don't have your name in the system... are you a recent transfer, Captain?" Showing some respect for his title.

She glanced at the terrarium under his arm with some surprise. "Are those live creatures?"

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

"Yup," he said, to both questions. "Just got transferred. These are pi'aushfa rala, commonly called fairy bears." He made a sort of cooing noise in the bears' direction, and was answered by a rustle of wings.

[anon-crewperson.livejournal.com]

"You'll need to speak to the Captain then. The bears will need to be put under quarantine and checked over, if they have appropriate sign off. You're lucky, we just got a vet on board. Already had someone trying to bring something on board that's not only not been signed off on, but was illegal in this part of the system. Can't even begin to think how they managed that one." She smiled, clearly comfortable with this. She held out her hand to him, knowing that either he would lie about it or provide a PADD with the appropriate information.

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

He handed her the scrap of psychic paper. It would look very official and say exactly what it needed to. The only thing it wouldn't do, unfortunately, was stop being paper. He hoped that paperwork in this universe was still allowed to be actual paper...

[anon-crewperson.livejournal.com]

A brief glance over the paper, but she looked back up at him. "Captain, I'll need the official write off from the planet below before I can allow them on board. You know most creatures aren't allowed on ships." She began looking up the name he had said for the creatures, and was surprised to have no information on them at all.

"Let me contact the captain about this."

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

"Okay," he agreed, outwardly confident, but privately dismayed. The psychic paper should have worked; she was only a clerk, really, surely her mind wasn't developed enough to resist the paper's telepathic receptors? "You should do that, yeah.

"If you don't mind me asking, what's the other creature that was brought aboard, the one you said was illegal?" John's curiosity got the better of him. Information was universal currency, after all.

[anon-crewperson.livejournal.com]

"It was a type of ice-lizard from Andoria," she informed him without her eyes lifting from her PADD. Finally she nodded and looked to two security men nearby. There was a brief conference, then she looked to Hart. "These two will bring you up to meet the captain."

A smile, and she put out her arms to take the terrarium. "I'll make sure that your friends are taken care of until their future is decided." But there was a tone in her voice that said she would not let them remain if they weren't allowed to.

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

"I met an ice-lizard once," he commented. "Exquisite bone structure. She wasn't from Andoria, though." He flashed a grin at the muscular, red-shirted officers. "Hi there."

He handed over the terrarium with no small amount of reluctance, giving Tosh and Owen a stern look that said You use all your powers of cuteness to make them love you, or else. Owen immediately flew to the bottom of the cage, allowing the cubs to crawl over him. John nodded in approval. "Right then, let's go meet the captain!"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

The fairy bears were taken off, and Hart was brought through the Enterprise and up to Jim's office. Jim was tucked away inside, the doors opening as soon as people got in range meaning he was alone for the moment. He looked up when a stranger and two security came up, raising brows in their direction.

What was this guy wearing? It looked like something from a few hundred years ago in style, or a species just catching up. "Hello. Can I help you?"

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

John was annoyed to find himself self-consciously straightening his jacket. The man at the desk exuded quiet power. He glanced to the security guards, half expecting them to answer Kirk; why was he being brought to the captain, again?

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

When the stranger didn't answer, Jim gave a confused look to the security guards. They weren't hauling in this guy by his arms as if he was dangerous, they seemed pretty relaxed.

"Came on board without electronic transfer," one of them clarified, surprising Jim.

He looked back to the stranger, glancing up and down once. There was something about this guy that nudged at the very edges of his senses that he wasn't sure about, a look in his face. Jim gave a smile though, remaining seated. "What brings you on board my ship, Mister...?"

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

"Hart," he supplied, "Captain John Hart. And you, I take it, are Captain Kirk?" He wasn't likely to forget that name, after his time aboard the Narada. "I heard through the grapevine that the Enterprise is the place to be for us transuniversal types."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Not anymore," Jim laughed, understanding how Hart had gotten here now. "The place for transuniversal types, I like that name, is Starbase 69. We can give you a ride over there, though." He offered his hand, pleased to see a different man when Hart smiled.

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

John made a show of suppressing a shudder even as he shook Kirk's hand. "I don't like starbases," he declared. "Couldn't I stay here? I really do think the Enterprise is the best place for me now. Besides, I could be...useful." The last word was accompanied by a subtle leer.

"Or," he added, "if you really insist on me leaving the ship, you could clap me in irons and throw me in the brig until we get to the base..." He held out his hands, palms up and wrists together, as though willing to be handcuffed. As he extended his arms, his jacket sleeve slid up, revealing the vortex manipulator on his wrist.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

(OOC: jkdfhsdkjhfskdjhsd GOD DAMMIT I know I responded to this. LJ... *shakes fist* Sorry hun!)

The leer was caught and took Jim by surprise. It was usually him laying that treatment on someone else. "Er, well," thinking quickly, "look, before you jump in with no pants on, have a seat. Tell me about yourself. I've never seen a uniform like that before, where are you from?"

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

[OOC - No worries! It happens. *glares at LJ*]

"Oh, you know," John answered, gesturing vaguely, "around. The uniform is from 19th century Earth, but that's sort of a long story. There was a horse, and a Neimodian, and..." He made a wry face. "It's complicated."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Complicated is pretty much my middle name, Captain, so start talking." Jim wasn't too in the mood for bullshit, he wanted to know the truth. After what had happened to Spock thanks to that mirror Pike...

[hart-of-time.livejournal.com]

John blinked. He wanted to hear how John got the jacket that badly? "Right...okay. The Neimodian, lovely lady she was, came to poke around this site on some Pacific island, right, because someone had stumbled across a bit of beautiful tech from about a thousand years and three thousand lightyears away, smack dab in the middle of where it shouldn't have been. Naturally the Time Agency sent me after it, couldn't trust anyone else."

He paused to preen a little. "So I get there and I find out, Captain Hart--the one with the uniform--his horse has swallowed the metastatic oscillation converter! Of course I did what I had to. That's when I came upon the Neimodian girl, three of her appendages inside two of the horse's orifices. Obviously I apologized and left them to it, but after she'd been in there a while I realized what was actually going on, and, well, the rest is history, as they say."

He sat back and smiled broadly.