fic: Of Pilots And Groundbreaking Inventions.
Title: Of Pilots And Groundbreaking Inventions.
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: PG.
Warnings: AU
Characters/Pairings: Gen, pre-Chekov/Sulu.
Summary: The steampunk Enterprise crew, as seen through the eyes of Sulu. Written for this prompt.
A/N: I've never written steampunk before, and haven't read or seen that much of it, but I was really intrigued by the prompt, so I thought I'd give it crack. It didn't go anywhere I thought it'd go, and it might have ended up more the 'Enterprise in unspecified time period', but I'm quite pleased with it. I definitely want to write more, at least. I tried a different writing style, and it turned out okay, I think.
It started with Sulu needing a job. A simple, every day occurrence, but one in which he was not alone, not in this economic climate. He'd seen the number of homeless on his street alone grow almost exponentially in a matter of weeks, poor dirty children running with their feet bare on the rough tiles.
Mother didn't want him to leave; he'd never been across the bridge before, and he knew only a handful of people who had. Travel was rarely undertaken for pleasure by anyone but the richest, and when times were good, there was no need to look further afield for employment. But times were not good, and Hikaru was a drain on the household - a young man who had not married and who dreamed of stepping aboard one of the many airships that dotted the skyline.
His father pronounced it a pipe dream; his mother, a risk too great, but he packed his bag nevertheless, and if he felt any trepidation at the thought of crossing that great bridge, he kept it from his features, kissed his mother and sisters' cheeks, and shook his father's hand.
The Presidio was hiring.
-
His first night on the other side of the bridge was, let us say, jarring. Poverty wasn't magically absent from this place, but rather punctuated by a culture of drinking and fighting that he had not been exposed to by a somewhat coddling family. He found his fistful of carefully saved credits wouldn't get him far here and was considering sleeping rough for the night as he passed a down at heel tavern.
It was of course at this precise moment that the doors burst open and a veritable crowd of people stumbled out in various states of inebriation. Later, perhaps, he would look on it as fate. A brawl was brewing, Hikaru quickly surmised, by the looks of the taut-muscled bear of a man and the lithe figure set upon him. The smaller man, it seemed to Hikaru, had more friends, but the bear had bigger ones.
“Captain, Captain, Captain,”a calm monotone voice was repeating at a steady pitch over the incomprehensible yelling that was coming mostly from, well, the Captain, though Hikaru had never seen a captain such as he. He was young, as young as Hikaru himself, maybe, and fought like a wild animal. “I believe it would be in our interests to depart rapidly.”
“But did ye hear what he said about Miss Uhura?” another of their group yelled, tripping an attacker and catching him in a headlock. Though he professed some outrage at this slight of a lady friend of theirs, it was quite plain that he participated in this fight with glee.
“It did indeed hear what the... gentleman said about Nyota, but it is of no consequence as he does not know her and has no authority on which to make such statements.”
“But it's the principle of the thing, Mr Spock!” The Scottish man ducked a punch and landed a blow in an attacker's gut easily, but in his righteous indignation at the Mr Spock failed to notice the main instigator, having briefly forgotten about the captain, barrel towards him.
Hikaru did only what first came to mind. He stuck his foot out.
The man went flying in quite spectacular a fashion.
“Well, thank you, lad,” the man said, smiling brightly before throwing himself back into the fight with gusto.
Hikaru was not an aggressive man, had not been raised in such a way, but he was more than proficient in the art of fencing, and that training had made him fair at hand to hand combat. A skill which would soon be of use as some attention was redirected to him, the stranger who had laid out their leader. He blocked and dodged well, but there would only be so long that he'd be able to fend off the larger man.
“I suggest,” a cool voice filtered into Hikaru's hearing, somehow distinct among rabble, “that you step aside.”
Hikaru took this interruption as a chance to dance out of reach, as his attacker looked around, and they both saw a frankly beautiful woman, all the more beautiful for the pistol in her hands.
“Now, please,” she said, and the man simply sneered, and wheeled back round to face Hikaru.
She fired two shots into the air. Now this, this held the man's attention.
“Please leave,” she said, and he swallowed hard. Seeming to think this point of honour not worth losing his life over, he moved back to the main fight.
“Thank you, Ma'am,” Hikaru said, nodding slightly. She offered a quick smile and tucked the pistol into her purse.
In the commotion, his bag had got thrown to the curb, and, he noticed now for the first time, quite stepped on and crushed. “Damn,” he muttered, snagging it by the straps and holding it up as dirty water seeped out of the bottom.
And then, from behind him, there seemed a dramatic upturn in the confusion, which had in the past few minutes settled into a steady rhythm of smacks and yells.
“Jim!” a voice all but screamed, and from the doors out tumbled two new figures, two boys, one dressed in a waistcoat and yellowing shirt, holding a large satchel to his chest, the other with his cap pulled down low over his face. They skidded to a halt, the first boy's eyes darting this way and that like a cornered deer.
“Jim!” the voice boomed again, and abruptly Jim - who Hikaru quickly realised was also the aforementioned captain - was swung over an older man's shoulder and carried away from the brawl.
“Hey! Hey!” he yelled, pounding on his carrier's back with his fists.
“If you don't cut that the fuck out, I'll get Spock to nerve pinch ya, and then I'll shoot you up with something from lab.”
This, it seemed, was a sufficient threat to quieten the captain, though he still squirmed indignantly.
The group seemed to solidify around these two men, leaving their rather worse for the wear attackers unsure of whether to follow or not. They chose the latter.
“Eh, lad, you comin' with us?” the Scottish man called, walking backwards. The waist coated boy still close to Hikaru frowned a second, then smiled.
“You are more than welcome,” he said, accent heavy, shifting the satchel in his grip, holding to him like precious cargo. Hikaru looked at his ruined belongings and then back at the angry locals. It was, he quickly decided, probably best to find somewhere else to be.
“Okay, sure.”
He followed them a short distance to a car that looked at once the most high tech vehicle he'd ever seen, and a complete wreck, with two rows of seats facing each in the back and another two in the front for the driver and a passenger. The man carrying Jim strode forward, pulled the door open with one hand, and dumped Jim inside, muttered something irritably and climbed in after him. Mr Spock and the lady with the pistol followed, her hand barely touching his as he helped her in. The Scottish man and the boy in the cap took the front two seats, passenger and driver respectively, which left just Hikaru and the Russian boy.
“I am Pavel Andreivitch Chekov,” he said, extending one hand awkwardly, still pressing his satchel to his chest. It was the wrong hand, left rather than right, but Hikaru took it nevertheless.
“Uh, Hikaru Sulu,” he replied.
“I am... pleased to know you, Hikaru,” Chekov said, instantly foregoing the propriety of using his last name. Chekov's fingers were long and slim, and curled neatly around Hikaru's.
There were lots of surprises on the cramped trip to wherever they were going. For one, the captain appeared almost totally sober now, reaching for the Chekov's satchel the instant they got into the cab, where Hikaru took the last available seat, and Chekov sat on the floor with his back against the door.
“Good fucking work, Pavel,” the captain said, peering into the satchel momentarily, and then sealing it and tucking it under his arm.
“I will get working on it the moment we get home!”
“Wait, you all live together?” he asked, looking around at the cab; at Mr Spock with the woman Hikaru knew now to be the slandered Miss Uhura on his lap, the captain lounging back in his seat with his long legs stretched out until they bumped the legs of the man whose silence radiated irritation.
“Yeah,” he said, “we have orgies, and everything. Who are you again?”
“We do not have orgies, James,” Uhura said, his name on her tongue sounding like a swear word. “And this is Mr Sulu; he gallantly stepped in to help when you were being beaten up.”
“Aye, he did that,” the Scottish man called from the front. “Very handy with his fists, might come in useful.”
The captain shrugged. “Maybe, but I wasn't getting beaten up - it's called providing a distraction.”
The doctor snorted. “You threw yourself bodily on him. We didn't need that much of a distraction.”
“He was a big guy!” The captain licked at his lip and hissed just a touch through his teeth.
The drive home took so many twists and turns that even if Hikaru had known this part of the city, he'd never have been able to find his way back to the tavern. And this, it would appear, was exactly how the group liked it. Eventually the vehicle creaked and shuddered and puffed to a halt outside a house with turrets and a series of winding steps that led to the front door. On the porch hung one lantern with a dwindling candle burning inside, and from its dim light, Hikaru could see that though the house was indeed grand, it was poorly maintained; paint was chipping and peeling away from the door, and the knocker was rusted and loose.
The driver got out first, bouncing out of his enthusiastically, and came round to open one of the back doors, removing his cap as he went.
Hikaru was quickly forced to re-evaluate his perception of the 'boy' as red curls sprung out, and the face, green as it was, was quite assuredly not that of a male. The suddenly female driver grinned and slid pins from her hair as he stared in an unforgivably brazen manner.
“I'm an Orion,” she said, “Sometimes it helps if people don't know I'm a woman.”
He learned a great many things that first night; he learned, for instance, that Dr McCoy was - according to the captain - a mad scientist with a laboratory of horrors, but then apparently so was Mr Spock, and Chekov, and Scotty, and Miss Gaila. He discovered that they'd stolen whatever was held in Chekov's satchel, which was swiftly spirited away down a hatch in the kitchen by Chekov, Gaila, and Scotty, while Dr McCoy forcibly tended to Kirk's wounds.
Mr Spock made tea, first shedding his jacket and draping it over the back of an empty chair, smoothing out the creases. The kitchen was large, yet crowded, adorned with strange little shiny metal contraptions, stacks of crockery and cutlery on the counters, and a basket on the floor overflowing with clothes. Somehow, though, Mr Spock seemed perfectly dignified among the chaos, just as he had in the earlier fight. He folded his sleeves neatly to his elbows and turned the faucet; for a second or two, or three, there was no water, then the pipes began to shudder and creak - so much so that Hikaru could feel the vibrations on the soles of his feet - and a trickle of water ran out, quickly transforming into a haphazard gush. Mr Spock did not flinch, merely collecting the water, and moving the kettle to a type of mesh cradle hanging from four wires attached to some kind of mechanical arm. He shut the water off and pressed a button; the strange machine swung around, depositing the kettle on the range, two smaller arms moving to switch the gas on, and spark a flame, which caught and began heating the water.
“Nice, isn't it?” Kirk grinned around McCoy's hands cleaning his cuts, catching Hikaru watching it with interest. “Chekov invented it.”
“Damn waste of time,” McCoy huffed, swiping a cotton ball soaked in some identifiable blue liquid over a cut running along Kirk's jaw. “Thing break's that often.”
“It's instant tea!” Kirk insisted, trying to shy away from the doctor's hand, only to have to back of his head gripped and held in place.
“That is incorrect,” Mr Spock interjected, standing to the side, hands folded his back. “It is neither instant, nor more timely than making it by hand.”
Kirk rolled his eyes. “Gentlemen, you have no imagination.” He shifted as much as he could to look at Hikaru. “So what can you do?”
“I-” Hikaru frowned. “I'm not sure I understand.”
“Well, from your bag and your general appearance, I assume you have nowhere else to go, which consequently leads me to assume that you would like to stay here. So. What skills can you bring to the crew?”
On Hikaru's right, Miss Uhura sighed, and muttered, “Crew!” under her breath.
Hikaru thought. He'd done well at school, had been one of the only people on his street to go on to university, but he'd never had a steady job. His father said he had his head in the clouds, and this was true; the clouds and the airships were where his heart and head lay.
“I'm a good driver,” he finally settled on. Kirk slapped the table.
“Great! Get away driver!”
“James,” Uhura admonished. “As we are not making a habit of thievery, we will have no need for a get away driver, will we?”
“Right, right, okay.” He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers. “Pilot!”
“Pilot?” Hikaru repeated shakily, the very word making his toes tingle. “Piloting what, Captain?”
He had thought the captain could not smile wider, but he did, pushing the doctor away and taking Hikaru's hand. “Have I got something to show you, Sulu.” He pushed back the rug covering the hatch that Chekov and the others had disappeared down earlier, and pulled it up by the rope handle.
Beyond the hatch was a wooden ladder, and Kirk was taking the steps two at a time, beckoning Hikaru to follow. Above them, Hikaru could hear a metallic clatter and a barked curse from the doctor, but he didn't look back.
The basement, simply put, was amazing, split into several different levels, doors that would seem to lead to yet more rooms; it looked as big as the house itself.
“You- you have an airship?” he ventured, picking up his pace to follow Kirk through the twisting staircases and walkways.
“An airship? Kid, that stuff's old news.” He stopped, leaning over a rail. “Is everyone decent down there?” he yelled, then waved Hikaru over.
He watched Hikaru's face, and surely it must have been a sight; dimly Hikaru was aware of his mouth dropping open, his fingers curling tight around the rail.
It was like looking into the inside of a whale; great curved strips of steel stretched forty feet up, the bottom was balanced on dozens of bricks stacked high on each corner, and from his vantage point, Hikaru could see Chekov's small figure stepping across the slats on the floor of the ship.
“We're going into space,” Kirk whispered close to his ear, before skipping down the final staircase.
It took Hikaru a moment, perhaps several, to recover, to drag his gaze from the magnificent structure. When sense did, finally, return, he turned and clattered down the steps after Kirk.
“But- but that's not even possible!”
Kirk just smiled serenely, dropping to a crouch beside Scotty to watch him nail a sheet of metal to the skeleton of the ship. “Chekov, care to take that one?”
The boy jumped between slats with practised ease, the balls of his sock-clad feet balancing easily as he ducked to retrieve a large chunk of crystal, pale pink in colour. “Is possible with this,” he proclaimed, holding it out slightly. “It controls power management, makes extended periods of propulsion possible. It is almost impossible to get hold of, this is why we have to steal it. Woman at public house was using it in heater! The ends, they...” He paused, casting about for the right words.
“Justify the means,” Kirk called.
“Yes, this: justify the means.” His smile seemed all the more brilliance for the contrast of his dirt smeared face. “You would like to touch it?”
“I- Can I?” At Chekov's eager nod, Hikaru stepped forward, running his fingertips along the surface of the crystal. It was jagged in places, smooth in others; not immediately discernible from any other crystal, but in Chekov's hands, it seemed amazing.
-
The house was Mr Spock's, one of the many properties owned by the Grayson estate. It was four storeys high, had nine bedrooms, and appeared to be in a rapidly deteriorating state. Hikaru's room, though grand, breathtakingly so, and beautifully furnished, had tell tale signs of damp in the badly reapplied warped wallpaper, and floorboards rotting where they met the wall. That first night, however, this was of little consequence to him, and in the nights and days that followed, there was hardly time to ponder such cosmetic issues as the room in which he slept.
There was, of course, the inescapable fact that both Mr Spock and Miss Gaila's roots so evidently did not begin on terra firma. Hikaru was well-educated, and certainly understood that there were other life forms living among them - he was not one of those who would dismiss them as rumours and believe that the universe was created solely for the enjoyment of humans - but he had never met an alien before, at least not of which he was aware. It was a strange adjustment to have to make, to acclimatise to their different ways, Mr Spock's more than Miss Gaila's (though the latter's penchant for walking around in the nude was challenging).
But then Hikaru had never met anyone from Russia or Scotland before either, and most certainly was unfamiliar with seemingly insane men from Iowa who everyone referred to as 'captain' - the reason for which Hikaru was still unsure.
Everyone here, it seemed, was from elsewhere; he, in fact, was the only one native to California, and though Miss Uhura and Mr Spock were tight-lipped on almost all subjects, Dr McCoy was at best unapproachable, and the captain would change the subject quickly from difficult questions, Chekov was only too happy to discuss his origins, with the occasional cameo from Scotty or Gaila when they could spare the time.
Chekov (Pavel, he had insisted, and Hikaru had been torn between his mother's words on politeness and propriety, and the irritated twist of Chek- Pavel's mouth), it seemed, was born and raised in Moscow until he was fourteen, until his mother died and his father was gone. Here Hikaru had tried to interject with words of condolence, but Pavel had waved him off with quick words of Russian that Hikaru did not understand, and a long draw of his mug filled with vodka.
“I travel miles, found first freight ship out of Russia,” he continued, leaning across the table to reshape their rapidly melting candle. “The words, they were English and I spoke only Russian, so I did not know where I was to go.”
“And you jumped on anyway?” The idea of it seemed unbelievable to Hikaru - though he needed only to look at the young man and know he was telling the truth.
Pavel shrugged. “There was nowhere else to go. Though in- in... ah, retrospect, yes, I may have attempted to gain sympathy rather than just stowing away - it was good luck that Scotty found me among the boxes of tea and ladies undergarments, otherwise I may have found myself in the Pacific ocean.”
“Was he the engineer?”
“Da. He let me stay in the engineering room, and brought me meals when he could. I was used to not so much food, so it was not so bad for me. I did not understand him much, but we got by.” Pavel refilled both their mugs from his unmarked bottle, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth when he saw that Hikaru's was barely touched. “And then he was thrown off ship.”
“Thrown off?”
Pavel head bobbed up and down. “He did experiments in engineering. No one knew about them... until the captain's dog got involved. Captain was surprisingly restrained in just leaving him at the dock. Scotty told me I was welcome to... 'come along for the ride', and I did. Engine rooms are too hot for Russians like myself.”
Hikaru took a sip of alcohol that burned his throat, and leaned forward. The nub of wax that had been their candle was beginning to collapse in on itself, and the kitchen was cast in warm yellow light. “So how did you end up here with the captain?”
“Ah.” Pavel smiled and set his elbows on the table. “I do not think I should tell you all my secrets so quickly - you may come to find me dull.”
“I don't think I'd ever be able to think that, Pavel,” Hikaru replied, and the statement was a true one; this was so far beyond his range of experience that he felt he would always be awed by it. He said as much to Pavel.
“Hikaru, do not judge yourself so harshly. Soon you'll be piloting a- a ship for the stars. This is amazing too.” He pushed back from the table and got up, no hint of inebriation, though Hikaru had drunk much less and was sure he would find the stairs to his room difficult to manage.
“Where're you going?” he asked, squinting at Pavel as he moved out of the flickering light of the candle.
“I am going to help build ship for you, Hikaru,” he replied, and rolled the rug back.
Hikaru decided that the table was a good a place as any to rest his eyes, just for a little while. The hum of drills and saws punctuated by Scotty's shouts lulled him to sleep.
-
Hikaru did not think the captain unintelligent, because it was clear that this was not true just by speaking to him, but he did wonder if Kirk's presence wasn't slightly extraneous. Each of them had their role; doctor, engineer, mechanic, inventor, gentlewoman (Miss Uhura, Mr Spock told him, was their best link to 'civilised society'; she knew how to speak and act and smooth over any harsh words spoken by Kirk. Hikaru thought surely that this was Mr Spock's function also, but Mr Spock said only that he was Vulcan, as if that was supposed to explain everything). Mr Spock provided room and board and seemingly endless supplies of money that ensured that they did not need to thieve the majority of what they required. Even Hikaru, under the gentle coaching of Pavel, quickly got a feel for the controls that would soon be connected to the engine of the ship.
Kirk, it appeared, held none of these qualities. He was, as Hikaru's mother might have said, a ruffian.
“Uhura!” Kirk's voice echoed early one Wednesday morning. Hikaru was the only one to pay any mind to it: Dr McCoy continued to drink his tea, leaning back in his chair, Pavel flipped the magnifying glass down on his eye piece as he set another screw into what would soon form part of the control panel, and Mr Spock turned a page in his newspaper, face completely hidden behind it.
Uhura's own voice rose in reply, but the words were foreign to Hikaru, though Kirk answered in kind. Their argument got louder as they moved to the kitchen, and Hikaru could see them in the hallway, Kirk in his undershirt, one suspender loose, Uhura neatly sliding pins into her hair. She snapped something out, glancing back to glare at him, and Kirk replied, pulling a face and gesticulating wildly.
“What language are they speaking?” he murmured to Pavel, who started slightly and looked up, right eye comically huge behind the magnifying glass.
“Mm, I believe French, and German, and oh, that is Ukrainian, and that is Russian--” He paused. “I do not believe I should repeat those words.”
“I didn't know they spoke that many languages.” He could believe it of Uhura, but he could admit, at least to himself, that Kirk was a surprise.
“The captain spent many years at sea. And Miss Uhura, she was the daughter of an ambassador.”
Hikaru nodded and watched closely as Kirk stomped in, snatching up what little tea remained in the pot, and drinking it straight, ignoring the growl of irritation from Miss Uhura. She shoved past him and began collecting breakfast utensils as Kirk finished the tea and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Good morning, fine sirs-- and madam,” he muttered, glancing sidelong at Miss Uhura, who continued to refuse to look at him. He got no reply save for Hikaru's slightly embarrassed nod. “Ah, that's what I like about you gentlemen, so... vibrant and--”
He trailed off, bending down slightly, staring curiously under the table. “Chekov, there appears to be something by your feet.”
“Hm?” Pavel hummed, focused again on his work.
Kirk crouched, and Hikaru scooted his chair back from the table, watching as his hand darted out quickly and got hold of something large and metallic. Kirk shuffled back and held up a struggling silver creature. Its pincers flexed back forth like fingers curling into a fist. Kirk touched one of them and hissed as the sharp tip brought blood to the end of his finger. He stood, and pulled the rug and hatch back.
“Scotty!” he yelled, waited half a minute, then yelled again, “Scotty, get up here!”
There was a distant sound of feet, and eventually Kirk moved back and Scotty's head appeared at the hatch.
“This yours, Mr Scott?”
“Ah, so that's where the little bugger went!” Scotty exclaimed, and climbed higher to take the creature from Kirk. “Just a little side project, Captain,” he said, in answer to the suspicious look on Kirk's face. “No harm done.”
“Mr Scott, I have no doubt that one day these little creations of yours will destroy the planet.”
“Aye, captain,” Scotty replied, in a tone rather dreamy, if Hikaru wasn't mistaken.
-
Hikaru had not seen his family in months. They wrote often, and he wrote back, but the frequency of his replies slowed as other things began to gain importance. He did not tell them much; did not tell them that the hull of the ship had been finished today, or that Pavel had made the the engine turn over twice last week and had cheered in Russian, or any number of other things, because they would have thought him mad, and he didn't want his mother to worry.
This night, however, he wrote his family a long letter, one that left dozens of rejected versions in the waste basket, slipped it into an envelope, and jogged down to the postbox. It would get picked up early next morning, and he hoped that what he had said - that he was safe - would not prove to be a lie. He knew that his happiness, at least, was true.
Pavel was on the porch when he got home, installing his newest invention: the solar powered light. He had insisted that with a day's worth of light in it, it would be better than any candle. Inside, Kirk was singing loud, off key, sea shanties, and Hikaru was almost certain he could discern Dr McCoy's voice in there somewhere.
“Do you think it'll work. The ship?” he asked, walking up the steps and reaching up to help Pavel hold the light in place.
Pavel dropped a nail he had been holding between his teeth into his hand, and touched it to where he was going to hammer it in. He hummed a second, then glanced up.
“I do not believe that in the end it really matters, Hikaru. I believe that it is the... taking part that counts?”
Hikaru paused, and probably would have said something were it not for Pavel's hammering. As it was, he just smiled and moved his fingers out of harm's way. He supposed it really didn't matter at all.
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: PG.
Warnings: AU
Characters/Pairings: Gen, pre-Chekov/Sulu.
Summary: The steampunk Enterprise crew, as seen through the eyes of Sulu. Written for this prompt.
A/N: I've never written steampunk before, and haven't read or seen that much of it, but I was really intrigued by the prompt, so I thought I'd give it crack. It didn't go anywhere I thought it'd go, and it might have ended up more the 'Enterprise in unspecified time period', but I'm quite pleased with it. I definitely want to write more, at least. I tried a different writing style, and it turned out okay, I think.
It started with Sulu needing a job. A simple, every day occurrence, but one in which he was not alone, not in this economic climate. He'd seen the number of homeless on his street alone grow almost exponentially in a matter of weeks, poor dirty children running with their feet bare on the rough tiles.
Mother didn't want him to leave; he'd never been across the bridge before, and he knew only a handful of people who had. Travel was rarely undertaken for pleasure by anyone but the richest, and when times were good, there was no need to look further afield for employment. But times were not good, and Hikaru was a drain on the household - a young man who had not married and who dreamed of stepping aboard one of the many airships that dotted the skyline.
His father pronounced it a pipe dream; his mother, a risk too great, but he packed his bag nevertheless, and if he felt any trepidation at the thought of crossing that great bridge, he kept it from his features, kissed his mother and sisters' cheeks, and shook his father's hand.
The Presidio was hiring.
-
His first night on the other side of the bridge was, let us say, jarring. Poverty wasn't magically absent from this place, but rather punctuated by a culture of drinking and fighting that he had not been exposed to by a somewhat coddling family. He found his fistful of carefully saved credits wouldn't get him far here and was considering sleeping rough for the night as he passed a down at heel tavern.
It was of course at this precise moment that the doors burst open and a veritable crowd of people stumbled out in various states of inebriation. Later, perhaps, he would look on it as fate. A brawl was brewing, Hikaru quickly surmised, by the looks of the taut-muscled bear of a man and the lithe figure set upon him. The smaller man, it seemed to Hikaru, had more friends, but the bear had bigger ones.
“Captain, Captain, Captain,”a calm monotone voice was repeating at a steady pitch over the incomprehensible yelling that was coming mostly from, well, the Captain, though Hikaru had never seen a captain such as he. He was young, as young as Hikaru himself, maybe, and fought like a wild animal. “I believe it would be in our interests to depart rapidly.”
“But did ye hear what he said about Miss Uhura?” another of their group yelled, tripping an attacker and catching him in a headlock. Though he professed some outrage at this slight of a lady friend of theirs, it was quite plain that he participated in this fight with glee.
“It did indeed hear what the... gentleman said about Nyota, but it is of no consequence as he does not know her and has no authority on which to make such statements.”
“But it's the principle of the thing, Mr Spock!” The Scottish man ducked a punch and landed a blow in an attacker's gut easily, but in his righteous indignation at the Mr Spock failed to notice the main instigator, having briefly forgotten about the captain, barrel towards him.
Hikaru did only what first came to mind. He stuck his foot out.
The man went flying in quite spectacular a fashion.
“Well, thank you, lad,” the man said, smiling brightly before throwing himself back into the fight with gusto.
Hikaru was not an aggressive man, had not been raised in such a way, but he was more than proficient in the art of fencing, and that training had made him fair at hand to hand combat. A skill which would soon be of use as some attention was redirected to him, the stranger who had laid out their leader. He blocked and dodged well, but there would only be so long that he'd be able to fend off the larger man.
“I suggest,” a cool voice filtered into Hikaru's hearing, somehow distinct among rabble, “that you step aside.”
Hikaru took this interruption as a chance to dance out of reach, as his attacker looked around, and they both saw a frankly beautiful woman, all the more beautiful for the pistol in her hands.
“Now, please,” she said, and the man simply sneered, and wheeled back round to face Hikaru.
She fired two shots into the air. Now this, this held the man's attention.
“Please leave,” she said, and he swallowed hard. Seeming to think this point of honour not worth losing his life over, he moved back to the main fight.
“Thank you, Ma'am,” Hikaru said, nodding slightly. She offered a quick smile and tucked the pistol into her purse.
In the commotion, his bag had got thrown to the curb, and, he noticed now for the first time, quite stepped on and crushed. “Damn,” he muttered, snagging it by the straps and holding it up as dirty water seeped out of the bottom.
And then, from behind him, there seemed a dramatic upturn in the confusion, which had in the past few minutes settled into a steady rhythm of smacks and yells.
“Jim!” a voice all but screamed, and from the doors out tumbled two new figures, two boys, one dressed in a waistcoat and yellowing shirt, holding a large satchel to his chest, the other with his cap pulled down low over his face. They skidded to a halt, the first boy's eyes darting this way and that like a cornered deer.
“Jim!” the voice boomed again, and abruptly Jim - who Hikaru quickly realised was also the aforementioned captain - was swung over an older man's shoulder and carried away from the brawl.
“Hey! Hey!” he yelled, pounding on his carrier's back with his fists.
“If you don't cut that the fuck out, I'll get Spock to nerve pinch ya, and then I'll shoot you up with something from lab.”
This, it seemed, was a sufficient threat to quieten the captain, though he still squirmed indignantly.
The group seemed to solidify around these two men, leaving their rather worse for the wear attackers unsure of whether to follow or not. They chose the latter.
“Eh, lad, you comin' with us?” the Scottish man called, walking backwards. The waist coated boy still close to Hikaru frowned a second, then smiled.
“You are more than welcome,” he said, accent heavy, shifting the satchel in his grip, holding to him like precious cargo. Hikaru looked at his ruined belongings and then back at the angry locals. It was, he quickly decided, probably best to find somewhere else to be.
“Okay, sure.”
He followed them a short distance to a car that looked at once the most high tech vehicle he'd ever seen, and a complete wreck, with two rows of seats facing each in the back and another two in the front for the driver and a passenger. The man carrying Jim strode forward, pulled the door open with one hand, and dumped Jim inside, muttered something irritably and climbed in after him. Mr Spock and the lady with the pistol followed, her hand barely touching his as he helped her in. The Scottish man and the boy in the cap took the front two seats, passenger and driver respectively, which left just Hikaru and the Russian boy.
“I am Pavel Andreivitch Chekov,” he said, extending one hand awkwardly, still pressing his satchel to his chest. It was the wrong hand, left rather than right, but Hikaru took it nevertheless.
“Uh, Hikaru Sulu,” he replied.
“I am... pleased to know you, Hikaru,” Chekov said, instantly foregoing the propriety of using his last name. Chekov's fingers were long and slim, and curled neatly around Hikaru's.
There were lots of surprises on the cramped trip to wherever they were going. For one, the captain appeared almost totally sober now, reaching for the Chekov's satchel the instant they got into the cab, where Hikaru took the last available seat, and Chekov sat on the floor with his back against the door.
“Good fucking work, Pavel,” the captain said, peering into the satchel momentarily, and then sealing it and tucking it under his arm.
“I will get working on it the moment we get home!”
“Wait, you all live together?” he asked, looking around at the cab; at Mr Spock with the woman Hikaru knew now to be the slandered Miss Uhura on his lap, the captain lounging back in his seat with his long legs stretched out until they bumped the legs of the man whose silence radiated irritation.
“Yeah,” he said, “we have orgies, and everything. Who are you again?”
“We do not have orgies, James,” Uhura said, his name on her tongue sounding like a swear word. “And this is Mr Sulu; he gallantly stepped in to help when you were being beaten up.”
“Aye, he did that,” the Scottish man called from the front. “Very handy with his fists, might come in useful.”
The captain shrugged. “Maybe, but I wasn't getting beaten up - it's called providing a distraction.”
The doctor snorted. “You threw yourself bodily on him. We didn't need that much of a distraction.”
“He was a big guy!” The captain licked at his lip and hissed just a touch through his teeth.
The drive home took so many twists and turns that even if Hikaru had known this part of the city, he'd never have been able to find his way back to the tavern. And this, it would appear, was exactly how the group liked it. Eventually the vehicle creaked and shuddered and puffed to a halt outside a house with turrets and a series of winding steps that led to the front door. On the porch hung one lantern with a dwindling candle burning inside, and from its dim light, Hikaru could see that though the house was indeed grand, it was poorly maintained; paint was chipping and peeling away from the door, and the knocker was rusted and loose.
The driver got out first, bouncing out of his enthusiastically, and came round to open one of the back doors, removing his cap as he went.
Hikaru was quickly forced to re-evaluate his perception of the 'boy' as red curls sprung out, and the face, green as it was, was quite assuredly not that of a male. The suddenly female driver grinned and slid pins from her hair as he stared in an unforgivably brazen manner.
“I'm an Orion,” she said, “Sometimes it helps if people don't know I'm a woman.”
He learned a great many things that first night; he learned, for instance, that Dr McCoy was - according to the captain - a mad scientist with a laboratory of horrors, but then apparently so was Mr Spock, and Chekov, and Scotty, and Miss Gaila. He discovered that they'd stolen whatever was held in Chekov's satchel, which was swiftly spirited away down a hatch in the kitchen by Chekov, Gaila, and Scotty, while Dr McCoy forcibly tended to Kirk's wounds.
Mr Spock made tea, first shedding his jacket and draping it over the back of an empty chair, smoothing out the creases. The kitchen was large, yet crowded, adorned with strange little shiny metal contraptions, stacks of crockery and cutlery on the counters, and a basket on the floor overflowing with clothes. Somehow, though, Mr Spock seemed perfectly dignified among the chaos, just as he had in the earlier fight. He folded his sleeves neatly to his elbows and turned the faucet; for a second or two, or three, there was no water, then the pipes began to shudder and creak - so much so that Hikaru could feel the vibrations on the soles of his feet - and a trickle of water ran out, quickly transforming into a haphazard gush. Mr Spock did not flinch, merely collecting the water, and moving the kettle to a type of mesh cradle hanging from four wires attached to some kind of mechanical arm. He shut the water off and pressed a button; the strange machine swung around, depositing the kettle on the range, two smaller arms moving to switch the gas on, and spark a flame, which caught and began heating the water.
“Nice, isn't it?” Kirk grinned around McCoy's hands cleaning his cuts, catching Hikaru watching it with interest. “Chekov invented it.”
“Damn waste of time,” McCoy huffed, swiping a cotton ball soaked in some identifiable blue liquid over a cut running along Kirk's jaw. “Thing break's that often.”
“It's instant tea!” Kirk insisted, trying to shy away from the doctor's hand, only to have to back of his head gripped and held in place.
“That is incorrect,” Mr Spock interjected, standing to the side, hands folded his back. “It is neither instant, nor more timely than making it by hand.”
Kirk rolled his eyes. “Gentlemen, you have no imagination.” He shifted as much as he could to look at Hikaru. “So what can you do?”
“I-” Hikaru frowned. “I'm not sure I understand.”
“Well, from your bag and your general appearance, I assume you have nowhere else to go, which consequently leads me to assume that you would like to stay here. So. What skills can you bring to the crew?”
On Hikaru's right, Miss Uhura sighed, and muttered, “Crew!” under her breath.
Hikaru thought. He'd done well at school, had been one of the only people on his street to go on to university, but he'd never had a steady job. His father said he had his head in the clouds, and this was true; the clouds and the airships were where his heart and head lay.
“I'm a good driver,” he finally settled on. Kirk slapped the table.
“Great! Get away driver!”
“James,” Uhura admonished. “As we are not making a habit of thievery, we will have no need for a get away driver, will we?”
“Right, right, okay.” He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers. “Pilot!”
“Pilot?” Hikaru repeated shakily, the very word making his toes tingle. “Piloting what, Captain?”
He had thought the captain could not smile wider, but he did, pushing the doctor away and taking Hikaru's hand. “Have I got something to show you, Sulu.” He pushed back the rug covering the hatch that Chekov and the others had disappeared down earlier, and pulled it up by the rope handle.
Beyond the hatch was a wooden ladder, and Kirk was taking the steps two at a time, beckoning Hikaru to follow. Above them, Hikaru could hear a metallic clatter and a barked curse from the doctor, but he didn't look back.
The basement, simply put, was amazing, split into several different levels, doors that would seem to lead to yet more rooms; it looked as big as the house itself.
“You- you have an airship?” he ventured, picking up his pace to follow Kirk through the twisting staircases and walkways.
“An airship? Kid, that stuff's old news.” He stopped, leaning over a rail. “Is everyone decent down there?” he yelled, then waved Hikaru over.
He watched Hikaru's face, and surely it must have been a sight; dimly Hikaru was aware of his mouth dropping open, his fingers curling tight around the rail.
It was like looking into the inside of a whale; great curved strips of steel stretched forty feet up, the bottom was balanced on dozens of bricks stacked high on each corner, and from his vantage point, Hikaru could see Chekov's small figure stepping across the slats on the floor of the ship.
“We're going into space,” Kirk whispered close to his ear, before skipping down the final staircase.
It took Hikaru a moment, perhaps several, to recover, to drag his gaze from the magnificent structure. When sense did, finally, return, he turned and clattered down the steps after Kirk.
“But- but that's not even possible!”
Kirk just smiled serenely, dropping to a crouch beside Scotty to watch him nail a sheet of metal to the skeleton of the ship. “Chekov, care to take that one?”
The boy jumped between slats with practised ease, the balls of his sock-clad feet balancing easily as he ducked to retrieve a large chunk of crystal, pale pink in colour. “Is possible with this,” he proclaimed, holding it out slightly. “It controls power management, makes extended periods of propulsion possible. It is almost impossible to get hold of, this is why we have to steal it. Woman at public house was using it in heater! The ends, they...” He paused, casting about for the right words.
“Justify the means,” Kirk called.
“Yes, this: justify the means.” His smile seemed all the more brilliance for the contrast of his dirt smeared face. “You would like to touch it?”
“I- Can I?” At Chekov's eager nod, Hikaru stepped forward, running his fingertips along the surface of the crystal. It was jagged in places, smooth in others; not immediately discernible from any other crystal, but in Chekov's hands, it seemed amazing.
-
The house was Mr Spock's, one of the many properties owned by the Grayson estate. It was four storeys high, had nine bedrooms, and appeared to be in a rapidly deteriorating state. Hikaru's room, though grand, breathtakingly so, and beautifully furnished, had tell tale signs of damp in the badly reapplied warped wallpaper, and floorboards rotting where they met the wall. That first night, however, this was of little consequence to him, and in the nights and days that followed, there was hardly time to ponder such cosmetic issues as the room in which he slept.
There was, of course, the inescapable fact that both Mr Spock and Miss Gaila's roots so evidently did not begin on terra firma. Hikaru was well-educated, and certainly understood that there were other life forms living among them - he was not one of those who would dismiss them as rumours and believe that the universe was created solely for the enjoyment of humans - but he had never met an alien before, at least not of which he was aware. It was a strange adjustment to have to make, to acclimatise to their different ways, Mr Spock's more than Miss Gaila's (though the latter's penchant for walking around in the nude was challenging).
But then Hikaru had never met anyone from Russia or Scotland before either, and most certainly was unfamiliar with seemingly insane men from Iowa who everyone referred to as 'captain' - the reason for which Hikaru was still unsure.
Everyone here, it seemed, was from elsewhere; he, in fact, was the only one native to California, and though Miss Uhura and Mr Spock were tight-lipped on almost all subjects, Dr McCoy was at best unapproachable, and the captain would change the subject quickly from difficult questions, Chekov was only too happy to discuss his origins, with the occasional cameo from Scotty or Gaila when they could spare the time.
Chekov (Pavel, he had insisted, and Hikaru had been torn between his mother's words on politeness and propriety, and the irritated twist of Chek- Pavel's mouth), it seemed, was born and raised in Moscow until he was fourteen, until his mother died and his father was gone. Here Hikaru had tried to interject with words of condolence, but Pavel had waved him off with quick words of Russian that Hikaru did not understand, and a long draw of his mug filled with vodka.
“I travel miles, found first freight ship out of Russia,” he continued, leaning across the table to reshape their rapidly melting candle. “The words, they were English and I spoke only Russian, so I did not know where I was to go.”
“And you jumped on anyway?” The idea of it seemed unbelievable to Hikaru - though he needed only to look at the young man and know he was telling the truth.
Pavel shrugged. “There was nowhere else to go. Though in- in... ah, retrospect, yes, I may have attempted to gain sympathy rather than just stowing away - it was good luck that Scotty found me among the boxes of tea and ladies undergarments, otherwise I may have found myself in the Pacific ocean.”
“Was he the engineer?”
“Da. He let me stay in the engineering room, and brought me meals when he could. I was used to not so much food, so it was not so bad for me. I did not understand him much, but we got by.” Pavel refilled both their mugs from his unmarked bottle, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth when he saw that Hikaru's was barely touched. “And then he was thrown off ship.”
“Thrown off?”
Pavel head bobbed up and down. “He did experiments in engineering. No one knew about them... until the captain's dog got involved. Captain was surprisingly restrained in just leaving him at the dock. Scotty told me I was welcome to... 'come along for the ride', and I did. Engine rooms are too hot for Russians like myself.”
Hikaru took a sip of alcohol that burned his throat, and leaned forward. The nub of wax that had been their candle was beginning to collapse in on itself, and the kitchen was cast in warm yellow light. “So how did you end up here with the captain?”
“Ah.” Pavel smiled and set his elbows on the table. “I do not think I should tell you all my secrets so quickly - you may come to find me dull.”
“I don't think I'd ever be able to think that, Pavel,” Hikaru replied, and the statement was a true one; this was so far beyond his range of experience that he felt he would always be awed by it. He said as much to Pavel.
“Hikaru, do not judge yourself so harshly. Soon you'll be piloting a- a ship for the stars. This is amazing too.” He pushed back from the table and got up, no hint of inebriation, though Hikaru had drunk much less and was sure he would find the stairs to his room difficult to manage.
“Where're you going?” he asked, squinting at Pavel as he moved out of the flickering light of the candle.
“I am going to help build ship for you, Hikaru,” he replied, and rolled the rug back.
Hikaru decided that the table was a good a place as any to rest his eyes, just for a little while. The hum of drills and saws punctuated by Scotty's shouts lulled him to sleep.
-
Hikaru did not think the captain unintelligent, because it was clear that this was not true just by speaking to him, but he did wonder if Kirk's presence wasn't slightly extraneous. Each of them had their role; doctor, engineer, mechanic, inventor, gentlewoman (Miss Uhura, Mr Spock told him, was their best link to 'civilised society'; she knew how to speak and act and smooth over any harsh words spoken by Kirk. Hikaru thought surely that this was Mr Spock's function also, but Mr Spock said only that he was Vulcan, as if that was supposed to explain everything). Mr Spock provided room and board and seemingly endless supplies of money that ensured that they did not need to thieve the majority of what they required. Even Hikaru, under the gentle coaching of Pavel, quickly got a feel for the controls that would soon be connected to the engine of the ship.
Kirk, it appeared, held none of these qualities. He was, as Hikaru's mother might have said, a ruffian.
“Uhura!” Kirk's voice echoed early one Wednesday morning. Hikaru was the only one to pay any mind to it: Dr McCoy continued to drink his tea, leaning back in his chair, Pavel flipped the magnifying glass down on his eye piece as he set another screw into what would soon form part of the control panel, and Mr Spock turned a page in his newspaper, face completely hidden behind it.
Uhura's own voice rose in reply, but the words were foreign to Hikaru, though Kirk answered in kind. Their argument got louder as they moved to the kitchen, and Hikaru could see them in the hallway, Kirk in his undershirt, one suspender loose, Uhura neatly sliding pins into her hair. She snapped something out, glancing back to glare at him, and Kirk replied, pulling a face and gesticulating wildly.
“What language are they speaking?” he murmured to Pavel, who started slightly and looked up, right eye comically huge behind the magnifying glass.
“Mm, I believe French, and German, and oh, that is Ukrainian, and that is Russian--” He paused. “I do not believe I should repeat those words.”
“I didn't know they spoke that many languages.” He could believe it of Uhura, but he could admit, at least to himself, that Kirk was a surprise.
“The captain spent many years at sea. And Miss Uhura, she was the daughter of an ambassador.”
Hikaru nodded and watched closely as Kirk stomped in, snatching up what little tea remained in the pot, and drinking it straight, ignoring the growl of irritation from Miss Uhura. She shoved past him and began collecting breakfast utensils as Kirk finished the tea and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Good morning, fine sirs-- and madam,” he muttered, glancing sidelong at Miss Uhura, who continued to refuse to look at him. He got no reply save for Hikaru's slightly embarrassed nod. “Ah, that's what I like about you gentlemen, so... vibrant and--”
He trailed off, bending down slightly, staring curiously under the table. “Chekov, there appears to be something by your feet.”
“Hm?” Pavel hummed, focused again on his work.
Kirk crouched, and Hikaru scooted his chair back from the table, watching as his hand darted out quickly and got hold of something large and metallic. Kirk shuffled back and held up a struggling silver creature. Its pincers flexed back forth like fingers curling into a fist. Kirk touched one of them and hissed as the sharp tip brought blood to the end of his finger. He stood, and pulled the rug and hatch back.
“Scotty!” he yelled, waited half a minute, then yelled again, “Scotty, get up here!”
There was a distant sound of feet, and eventually Kirk moved back and Scotty's head appeared at the hatch.
“This yours, Mr Scott?”
“Ah, so that's where the little bugger went!” Scotty exclaimed, and climbed higher to take the creature from Kirk. “Just a little side project, Captain,” he said, in answer to the suspicious look on Kirk's face. “No harm done.”
“Mr Scott, I have no doubt that one day these little creations of yours will destroy the planet.”
“Aye, captain,” Scotty replied, in a tone rather dreamy, if Hikaru wasn't mistaken.
-
Hikaru had not seen his family in months. They wrote often, and he wrote back, but the frequency of his replies slowed as other things began to gain importance. He did not tell them much; did not tell them that the hull of the ship had been finished today, or that Pavel had made the the engine turn over twice last week and had cheered in Russian, or any number of other things, because they would have thought him mad, and he didn't want his mother to worry.
This night, however, he wrote his family a long letter, one that left dozens of rejected versions in the waste basket, slipped it into an envelope, and jogged down to the postbox. It would get picked up early next morning, and he hoped that what he had said - that he was safe - would not prove to be a lie. He knew that his happiness, at least, was true.
Pavel was on the porch when he got home, installing his newest invention: the solar powered light. He had insisted that with a day's worth of light in it, it would be better than any candle. Inside, Kirk was singing loud, off key, sea shanties, and Hikaru was almost certain he could discern Dr McCoy's voice in there somewhere.
“Do you think it'll work. The ship?” he asked, walking up the steps and reaching up to help Pavel hold the light in place.
Pavel dropped a nail he had been holding between his teeth into his hand, and touched it to where he was going to hammer it in. He hummed a second, then glanced up.
“I do not believe that in the end it really matters, Hikaru. I believe that it is the... taking part that counts?”
Hikaru paused, and probably would have said something were it not for Pavel's hammering. As it was, he just smiled and moved his fingers out of harm's way. He supposed it really didn't matter at all.