Star Trek Big Bang: On A Day Like This [1/7]

[oxymoronic]

Title: On A Day Like This
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Length: ~42k.
Rating: NC-17 for sex.



Master Post: Mix & Art
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven
At AO3
Stardate: 2255
Iowa

Jim wakes just after dawn. He sits up, burns his hand on a broken bulb and falls off the table he’s been sleeping on. Shipyard Bar is never classy, even at the best of times, and after the mess Jim made last night this hardly counts at the best of times; through the window, the seven-thirty gloom reflects off a million badly-chosen tacky vibrant choices in interior design. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he’s wearily certain of everything else; oh-eight-hundred-hours is drifting repeatedly through his head, in asynchrony with his pulse, and it hits him that Riverside Shipyard is, at its best, even with his bike, an hour’s drive away.

He palms the saltshaker on the way out and kicks up his bike and makes it there in forty-five.

Cinematically speaking, it’d be impressive for Jim to hurtle into the shipyard just in time to see the shuttle dwindling off into the pinked sky. In reality, Jim arrives a full quarter of an hour after the shuttle’s departed, but still swings off his bike, kicks off the engine and sets off in a jog around the shipyard, scanning around for any insignia, any sign of the shuttle. He keeps this up for a couple of minutes before he stops beside a grubby, balding engineer, working doggedly on a pile of rubble and haphazard shuttle parts. His badge proclaims in a cheery, cursive font that he’s Happy to Help. “I missed the recruitment shuttle, right?”

“Starfleet?” The engineer pauses, swaps his buzzing spanner head for a smaller model in his open toolbox and, after a while, nods. “Been gone a good while now.” It’s only a confirmation, but the news still prickles unpleasantly under the skin, and Jim turns his face upwards into the morning sunlight. As he looks back down, fishing in his pocket for his bike keys, the engineer looks at him. “Are you alright, kid? There's a hell of a lot of blood on that shirt.”

Jim ignores him. His nose is starting to beat an aching rhythm in the middle of his face, and he wonders if it’s broken. He turns, more than a little dispirited, and starts trudging back to his bike, but he stops halfway, calling back to the engineer. “When’s the next one going to leave?”

“From here?” The engineer shrugs. “Not for another year. We’re in the middle of bumfuck, nowhere; Starfleet hardly makes regular welcome calls.”

Jim lets it hit him; he’s there for another year. He lets his eyes slide around the shipyard; his fingers are already stinging with humidity and sweat, and it’s not even half eight - it’s always hot, and there’s always too much water. “Motherfucker,” he says quietly.

The engineer’s doing his best to be helpful. “I’m pretty sure there’s another leaving from Cooperstown in a couple days - ”

“Cooperstown?” Jim echoes, raising an eyebrow. “That’s out of state - how the fuck am I meant to get the money to go to Cooperstown?” His mom could probably lend him something - probably, but there’s no way in hell he’ll ever ask. He’s not even sure he wants her to know what he’s planning to do; it might just break her heart.

The engineer gives him a slow look. “Look - I’m sorry you missed your flight, kid, but you’re better off here than dead in space anyway.”

Jim stops in the office on his way out, and when he leaves he has a job for the next sixth months and an uneasy feeling in his mind.

His mom gives, as always, an unreserved, beatific smile when she sees him walk through her kitchen door.

“I’m glad they let you get a job again.” She’s cleaning Frank’s old, battered phaser; the trigger had caught while he was shooting rats in the back yard. He’d driven to town for a new one; she’d bet him a dozen credits she’d have it fixed by the time he got back. She sets it down to Jim’s left, and fetches Frank’s toolkit, snapping it open. “Especially after everything you did the last time you worked there.”

“Not that it was my fault.”

She chuckles. “It’s never your fault.” She sets about methodically snapping pieces off the phaser, polishing them absently as she does.

“Yeah, well.” He sighs, picks up a remote piece of the dismantled phaser and clicks it between his fingers. “I’m stuck here for another year at least.”

She pauses for a moment, and sets the barrel down on the table. “You were at the shipyard for the recruitment shuttle, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.” He coughs, moving a little uneasily in his chair. “But I kind of overslept.”

His mom lets out a long laugh and shoots him an amused look, clipping loose the battery with a plastic noise and placing it onto the table. “I did wonder why you were sat at my dinner table and not in orbit already.”

“San Francisco is hardly orbit.” He licks his lips, slowly, and pushes his piece along the table, watching as she clicks it back into place without a sound.

“I know that look, James T. Kirk. I’m thinking. Give me a minute.” She pushes the trigger back in place, clips the metal casing over the top and, turning in her chair, shoots at a pot plant outside the window, leaving a dirty brown scorch mark an inch deep through the lawn. She puts the reassembled phaser down on the table and runs her fingers along the metal, glancing up with a sigh. “I’d have been stupid not to have seen it coming. You wanting to follow in our footsteps, I mean.” She leans back and tucks her hair behind her ear, eyes flicking briefly to the window, thinking a noise on the sideroad heralded her husband’s return. “You’re too clever to lay bricks for the rest of your life - even if you hate to admit it - and too goddamn restless to wind up as an ambassador or a lawyer.” She smiles softly at him, playing with her fingers on the table, tripping them elegantly over each other. “You’ll get promoted quickly, in any rate, and everyone knows it’s the Ensigns that always bite the dust.”

He feels a little smile grow in the corner of his mouth. “You’re not going to tell me to be careful? Mind my step?”

She loses a little of the playfulness in her face, and glances down at the tablecloth. “Space is dangerous, Jim. We both just have to remember you’re not as stupid as you look, and neither was your father.” She runs her fingers along the back of his hand, cool and steady. “What killed your father was one in a million, something that’s never been seen before, something that we couldn’t have possibly planned for in a thousand years.” She sighs, and her eyes shine when she looks back up again. “What you have to remember about being in space, Jim, is that, as a wise man once put it, million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”

Stardate: 2256

The call isn’t unexpected, and his mom’s voice is steady on the other end of the line. “Frank’s dead, Jim.” He ends the transmission.

She’s sat alone in the kitchen when he arrives, an hour or so after he spoke to her. He makes her tea, because it always calms her nerves, and sits down opposite, running the back of his nail across his thumb.

Frank’s heart had been on the way out for just under a year; he’d claimed he’d spent too much of his life eating and being angry, but Jim’s mom always said that he’d always just cared too much. Twenty-third century medicine, and the figurative heart is still more important - and more difficult to fix - than the literal one. “When did it happen?”

“Yesterday,” she replies. “I was helping in the sanctuary at Elkhart and they couldn’t reach me till this morning.”

“His heart?”

“Yeah.” Her fingers pat the side of the mug. “When’s the shuttle meant to be leaving?”

“Tomorrow.” His bag’s almost packed, he’s resigned at work - he’d even written to Pike in a short, choppy missive to say he’d be arriving, though there’d been no reply. “Forget it,” Jim says, finally. “I’m staying for the funeral. Screw Starfleet; they can survive without me for another year.”

She begins to tremble a little, her fingers curling into tight little fists, and Jim knows he’s never made a wiser decision.

The funeral is a quiet, pleasant affair, with the usual foray of unsympathetic spouses and the grieving faces of family members showing, very clearly, it’s all just sinking in. For Frank, who, despite the occasional outburst (which were, in retrospect, generally Jim’s fault anyway) had been perfectly calm, normal and above all completely adverse to adventure, it’s pretty much the perfect funeral. “It was a lovely day,” his mother announces as he sees the last relative to the door. “It was perfect.” Jim hums a soft agreement and comes to stand behind her chair, running his fingers across her tiny shoulders. She shudders a little under his touch, and sighs. “I want to do it again, Jim,” she says softly, and Jim follows her eyes to the window, to the sky. “Just one more time.”

His mom stands in the doorstep, a bag in each hand and one on her back, and surveys him with a small smile. “You promise you’ll be okay?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

She laughs, her fingers fidgeting with the straps around her right fist. “I’ll call you when I get to Indianapolis.” The driver she’s hired has biomechanical arms, and Jim watches as he places her bags effortlessly in the trunk. “It’s going to be weird, being off-planet again,” she says finally. “I haven’t done it since our anniversary.”

Jim watches a line flicker beside her mouth. His mother is strong, but sometimes she runs away. “You got everything you need?”

“Yeah.”

He walks her to the cab, handing her the final bag after she climbs inside, and her smile stretches up at him from inside the window. “Okay,” he says, slowly, and smiles. “This is it.”

Her eyes shine with mischief. “Tell me you’ll miss me.”

He grins. “You know I never will.”

Her hand brushes his, just briefly. “Bye, Jim. Thanks.”

“No problem.” He walks backward into the doorway and watches her drive away.

Stardate: 2257

His mom calls him from Galorda Prime, three days before the shuttle is due back in Riverside Shipyard.

It isn’t unusual for her to call him; she normally does every time she moves planets, or does something spectacular she’s always wanted to do. She misses him, he can tell, and the farmhouse he’d sold on her behalf, but most of all she misses her husbands. Plural.

This time, though, they both know the motive is different, and they both know exactly what it is. “I don’t want you gone,” she says suddenly, eyes snapping up off her lap to lock with his. “Not while I’m not there.”

you feel like you were made for something different?

“Don’t worry, mom,” he replies coolly. “I wasn’t planning on going anyway.” He doesn’t mention how stupid her statement is - her being on planet, after all, still wouldn’t change the fact he still had to move to San Francisco, and wouldn’t be living with her anymore. It’s the perfect escape route for his own misgivings.

It’s been two years since Pike had met him, and Jim’s highly doubtful he even remembers his name. He’s had two empty years as a reality check.

He licks his lips and sighs as he looks at the blank screen.

something special?

Stardate: 2258

Jim sits crosslegged in front of the viewscreen and smiles across at his mom. She arrived in Vulcana Regar the night before, and from the sounds of it has had a pretty interesting day. “Honestly, Jim, it’s beautiful here. You should come pay me a visit sometime soon.”

Jim feels his smile grow a little. “I can’t believe you managed to settle down in the only place in the universe hotter than Iowa.”

She arcs an eyebrow. “Iowa’s nowhere near hot, Jim - there are places in the States hotter than Iowa. There’re plains here stretching for miles made of pure lava; the heat’s enough to burn your hair off.”

“You’d make an awful saleswoman, you know that?”

She chuckles. “I guess I am just proving your point.” She twines her fingers through the end of her ponytail. “But you promise you’ll come see me soon?”

“Of course I will. Problem being, I have responsibilities I can’t just drop and come running.”

He watches her eyes glitter with amusement. “Look at you, all grown up.” She sighs. “I am proud of you.”

His smile widens. “You don’t have to sound so begrudging when you say it.”

She doesn’t mention the shuttle, due, as Jim’s fully aware, in the shipyard eight-ay-em-sharp tomorrow morning; she doesn’t have to. She thinks it’s completely off the cards, and Jim’s still torn in disillusion over whether it might not be.

“Idiot.” She yawns, kneading one eye with her hand. “I’m going to get some sleep; some of us haven’t been on our lazy asses all day.”

“Screw you,” he murmurs, and terminates the link with a smile.

Jim walks out of the bathroom, biting down on a cleaning capsule, and shuts his mouth to let the foam explode inside. He spits in the sink and uses a handful of water to rinse his mouth out, and turns around to pump up the sound on the holofeed. It’s well after ten am, a good two hours since this year’s recruitment shuttle has left, and Jim’s head is foggy from too much sleep and the usual tinge of remorse.

He sinks down on the sofa and frowns at the holoscreen, trying to make sense of the news report. He can tell straight away something is wrong, something bad - the feed’s filled with reporters shouting and waving, flicking back and forth between sombre interviewer and confused expert, and every now and then it switches to a pulsing white dot on a black background which flashes bright and disappears.

“In the worst natural disaster in over a century, the destruction of Vulcan has seen the loss of over six billion inhabitants. Also destroyed in the disaster were eight Federation starships, though the location of one remaining ship is still unknown.”

Jim throws up in the bathroom, his mouth stinging minty-fresh.

His hands are still shaking when he does up the rucksack, slinging it across his back. He counts through the handful of credits he has at home, and mentally adds it to the amount in his account, gnawing absentmindedly on his lip. He could fifty-fifty the money, half on enough juice for his bike to get to Cooperstown, half on a ticket to San Francisco. The recruitment shuttle will be a free ride, but there’s no guarantee he’ll get to Cooperstown in time to catch one, especially when he doesn’t even know when or how often shuttles leave. It’s a good day’s ride, maybe more if he makes pit stops - but something about the set of his fists and the jumble of his head tells him he should just drive.

He ends up spending the night in Crookston, Minnesota, just shy of the border. He rides three buses terminus-to-terminus, mends a broken swing in the playground at the back of his motel and doesn’t eat dinner.

At the start of the twenty-third century, Starfleet took up Cooperstown as its central shuttleport, mainly because up until the late twenty-second century nothing had ever really happened there. It currently handles most of the traffic in the northern states, including general transport and trade from most of the world and pretty much all of Starfleet’s aerial transportation, complete with frequent shuttle runs to their base in San Francisco.

Jim checks the flight times as soon as he enters the airbase. Predictably, flights to San Francisco run frequently - almost every hour - but free rides for recruits and personnel only run daily, and the one today left half an hour ago. It’s a choice between using his remaining credits to get on the next shuttle over there, or hanging around till tomorrow and getting on the personnel shuttle for nothing.

He pushes his way through to the food lounge and grabs a few handfuls of things sharp, sweet and cheerful; his body hates him for his bike ride, and he takes his time to eat them, debating his options. The next San Francisco flight creeps up the departures list until it drops off the top, and the following one begins its ascent from the bottom, and Jim decides to check on his bike. He’s left it in the airbase’s parking area, mainly because he doesn’t really know what else to with it; he can’t exactly take it to San Francisco - not on this flight, anyway - but he doesn’t want it to rot in a sewer.

It’s not quite summer in North Dakota, so the weather isn’t at any extreme; cold, hot and fuggy, but sharp in the air, and Jim flexes his fingers as he steps outside the artificially-sustained airbase. He sits across the saddle of his bike and lets his feet scuff on the ground, dragging little half-circles against the synthetic floor.

There’s a guards’ office a couple of hundred feet away from his parking bay, and in the good-natured way of forced colleagues everywhere, the two insiders are bickering.

“It’s Vulcans,” one decides.

“It can’t be Vulcans, you idiot; their planet got blown up yesterday, in case you forgot.”

Jim flicks the keys out of his bike and walks along to the office door. The first guard leans in again. “Exactly,” he says promptly, and waves his finger. “They’re out for revenge.”

The second guard snorts. “Revenge for what? It was a natural disaster, asshole.”

Jim leans against the doorway and settles his eyes on the muted holoscreen. “What is it?”

The guards turn to look at him. “Vulcans,” the first replies, and the second hits him with a clipboard.

The feed jumps from a reporter to a full-screen satellite image of a ship hanging over Earth. It’s huge - one of the biggest Jim’s ever seen - and it’s hideously complex. The Federation goes for small, silver and quick, but most of all it goes for PR-friendly, easy on the eye. This ship looks like an explosion in a shrapnel factory, and the camera gives it a green, uneasy hue that sets Jim’s teeth on edge.

It also just happens to be suspended over Starfleet’s main base of operations.

“That’s not Vulcan,” Jim says slowly.

“I told you,” the second guard adds smugly, and hits the first with a clipboard again.

Jim cuts across the ensuing argument. “How long’s it been there? What’re they saying about it?”

The second guard shrugs. “It appeared about ten minutes ago, and no one knows who it belongs to, or why it’s here. I mean, we know pretty much all of the aerial operations over here, and if we’re none the wiser, well…” He shrugs. “Starfleet’s meant to be issuing a statement sometime soon, if you want to hang around.”

Jim shakes his head. “I’ll manage,” he replies, and walks out of the office.

The airbase is a little warmer when Jim re-enters, and it’s almost amusing to observe the change in the atmosphere around the place. Security’s increased doublefold, and the large holoscreens projecting the newsfeed (company policy, naturally) are doing little to settle the general uneasiness. Jim scans around, spots what he’s looking for sitting alone on a cluster of chairs near the check-in desks, and makes his way over, dropping his bag to one side of a chair. “Can I sit here?”

The Starfleet cadet doesn’t bother to look over his PADD. “Sure.”

Jim sits down opposite, and licks his lips slowly, leaning forwards to prop his elbows on his knees. “You’re a cadet, right?”

The cadet hesitates for a moment, and looks up. “Yeah,” he answers finally. “How did you know?”

Jim grins a little. “You pretty much fail at being discreet. You’re wearing civvies, but you’re still wearing a badge on your collar and the sleeve of your uniform’s stuck out of your duffel. It’s red. It’s pretty hard to miss.” He lets his smile widen. “Besides, all cadets sit like they’ve got a stick up their ass.”

The cadet finishes turning round from doing up his duffle in time to send Jim an appropriately filthy look. “Smart-assed motherfucker,” the cadet grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Why didn’t you go annoy one of the others, anyway?”

Jim glances around at the cadet’s gesture. Scattered through the airbase, the occasional unfortunate cadet or officer is surrounded by passengers pointing at the holoscreens and asking questions in loud voices. “Because of that,” Jim answers, and the cadet smiles a little, returning to his PADD.

“Smart move.”

“So.” Jim shrugs. “Do I need to ask the obvious question?”

“You can if you want, but my answer’s going to be the same as any of the others. I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

Jim’s smile flickers a little. “Seriously? None at all?”

The cadet shrugs. “No more than the rest of you.” He glances up at Jim. “To be honest, I don’t think anyone knows. Not even Starfleet.”

They slide into silence, and Jim slowly licks his lips. His eyes flicker back up at the ship on the holoscreen. “I don’t like this,” he says softly.

The cadet, after a moment, shuts down his PADD, looks up at Jim and nods. “It doesn’t take a Starfleet badge to work out something’s not right.”

Jim straightens a little and squints up at the feed. On screen, the picture of the ship’s changing, its base shifting until slowly something begins to sink out of the bottom and lower right into the San Franciscan atmosphere. It’s long, barbed and cylindrical, and Jim’s fingers tighten on the arm rest. It has a second to show the flash of orange as something in the cylinder activates, and then every single screen across the airbase clicks out to black. Seconds later, Jim feels the impact tremor hard underneath his ankles as it pushes up to vibrate around his kneecaps.

“What the hell was that?” the cadet barks beside him, after a rather unattractive yell. Jim frowns and closes his eyes, his head thrumming in time with his heartbeat, thinking desperately hard. “California’s over a thousand miles from here,” the cadet muses, voice a little less shaken, and Jim can hear his forehead crumple in concentration. “Whatever they’re doing over there, if we can feel the aftershocks this far away it can’t be good.”

Jim’s eyes snap open and fix on the blank holoscreen. “What’s the chances of all of these screens happening to fail all at once?” A second tremor follows the first, sending a fine shower of concrete dust settling across his shoulders.

The cadet shakes his head. “God knows,” he mutters, shrugging. “A million to one.”

A neat voice asks them all politely over the intercom to leave the airbase with minimal fuss and congregate in the parking lot outside, but Jim’s on his feet and running across to the Communications Office before the message has even finished broadcasting.

With a roll of his eyes, the cadet follows him.

“Can you get me in there?” Jim asks when he caught up, shrugging off a security guard’s hold and riding against the flow of passengers battling their way to the double-door exit.

The cadet hesitates for a second. “I can try.” He scans a badge in front of the computer terminus; the response is a red flash and a decidedly negative beep. “Sorry,” he replies, and shrugs. “I guess I don’t have the clearance.”

Jim swears to himself and turns on his heel, looking out across the steadily-emptying airbase. “We don’t need to clear the building - we need to clear the planet.”

The cadet snorts. “You’ve lost me.”

“That thing, whatever it is, it’s doing serious damage to the planet - you said yourself it must be bad if we can feel it - and those,” he jabs his finger at the nearest holoscreen, “those all failing at once is virtually impossible - communications blackout. Which, I believe, by your regulations, counts as an overtly hostile act.” The cadet’s half-listening, desperately trying to get in touch with someone over his handheld, and Jim can tell from the lines of frustration across his forehead it’s not working. “If even Starfleet’s comms are down, you have to admit that there’s something going on.”

“Are you always this paranoid?” The cadet, looking highly sceptical, shakes his head. “Look, even if there is something happening, Starfleet will be able to sort out some form of defence - it’s hardly worth evacuating the planet for.”

“But - ” The cadet sighs, shakes his head, and begins to walk away, still muttering to his handheld. Jim chases after and grabs his arm, spinning him on the spot. “What about Vulcan? Their planet randomly gets destroyed - ”

“It didn’t randomly get destroyed,” the cadet interrupts, irritable, “it suffered a natural disaster. Even Starfleet says so.”

“You still think so? With that thing hanging over our head?”

The cadet’s eyes slide to meet Jim’s. “Yeah, but…” He groans, shaking his head. “Jesus, as much as you might actually be on to something, I’m damned if I like it.”

Jim, in frustration, has abandoned him, and is already halfway across the foyer. Another roll of the eyes, and the cadet catches up with him again. He’s grabbed the arm of a passing security officer, much to her disapproval, and she’s protesting loudly, trying to catch the eye of a colleague. “I must ask, sir - ” It’s always amazed him how women can imbue one word with so much sarcasm. “ - that you leave the premises for the safety - ”

“You do interplanetary services from here too, right?”

She hesitates, still trying to free her arm. “Yes,” she replies, glancing at the cadet as he catches up with them. “There are a couple of shuttles in the hangar we use for shuttle runs for cargo and supplies.”

“We need to start getting as many of these people as we can into them, and get them - ”

“You’re fucking crazy,” she laughs, and wrestles against his fingers. By now, almost the whole of the airbase is deserted; the staff are filing out of the front doors, followed by the straggling passengers. A second officer comes up beside them and eyes up Jim’s hand wrapped around his colleague’s arm.

“Is everything alright here?”

“I’m fine,” she mutters, finally getting free from Jim’s fingers and turning away. “How many people are still in the building?”

“A few civilians caught in the bathrooms, half a dozen or so staff. Everyone else has made it out onto the field.” Over her shoulder, he glances Jim up and down, shifting his weight. “We’re advising people to stay calm and try and contact friends and family.”

“It won’t work,” Jim interrupts, pushing between them. “None of our communications devices are, not even Starfleet’s.” He glances at the cadet next to him, and turns back to the female officer. “Listen to me. I’m not crazy. If we stay on this planet, we’re dead.”

The guard, invulnerable to Jim’s exaggerated theatrics, merely looks sceptical. “I’m heading out to the field. Our orders are to sweep the building and congregate outside.” He walks off to the exit, leaving the three of them standing in the middle of the empty foyer. A third shock vibrates up through the floor, and the female officer winces.

“I don’t - ”

Jim puts his hand on her arm. “Where’s the nearest shuttle that’s capable of space travel?” She shakes her head, her mouth opening silently, and he shakes her a little. “Come on, you have to - ”

“Terminal 3-27,” she blurts out. “South wing. We were stacking it for a fuel run - ”

“I need you to round up everyone you can find in the building and get them over there, staff, civilians, anyone. Don’t go out on the field, it’ll just cause chaos - ”

“But - you can’t just - look! This is fucking insane!” She shrugs out of Jim’s grip again and shakes her head.

The cadet takes hold of her arm, softer, calmer. “Look, lady, I don’t like it either, but you have to admit something about this isn’t right.” Jim stares at him in surprise; since when did he switch sides?

“Of course it’s not right, but it’s more than my job’s worth to follow some dumb hick’s crazy plan to evacuate the planet.” She sighs, upturns her arm in a dramatic gesture, and then looks slowly between the two of them. “You really believe something’s going down, don’t you?”

The cadet looks suspiciously uneasy.

“Yeah,” Jim replies. “I do.”

She shakes her head, fishes in her pocket and drops a swipecard in Jim’s hand. “Get to the shuttle,” she mutters. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Jim puts his hand on her shoulder for a moment as a thanks, but she shrugs it off and runs across the foyer, another shower of dust falling just as she leaves. “This way,” he announces to the cadet, and sets off at a steady jog.

“Wrong way,” he replies, grabbing his shoulder and steering him around. “The south wing’s on the right.”

Jim looks at him. “I’m heading south.”

“Which’ll lead you to the east wing. The south wing is this way. Look, I’ve been in this building enough times to know the way around, and if you don’t believe me there’s a huge fucking sign above your head telling you that this is the way to the south wing.”

Jim looks up.

“Shut up.”

The shuttle in T3-27 turns out to be nothing more than a cargo ship, bare bones of a craft - they’re lucky to find it equipped with harnesses. Jim notices with slight amusement how his cadet companion pales slightly at the sight of it. “Nervous flier?”

“Fuck you,” he mutters back. He runs up the loading ramp and starts flipping down as many seats as he can find, digging around in the metal casing for seatbelts and harnesses. “I guess twenty seats, maybe twenty-five if we use the bench at the back with a single belt.”

Jim walks on board and glances around. “It’s not pretty.”

“Shuttles rarely are.”

Jim leaves the craft, standing uneasily beside the loading bay. “I’m not used to it,” he confesses as the cadet joins him, perching on an empty canister. “Ordering people around. Being in charge.”

“It’s not something you can get used to.” The cadet hands him a small flask, and he takes a grateful drink. “Call me old-fashioned, but it seems a little odd to take a drink with you when I don’t even know your name.”

Jim’s lips curve up a little. “Jim Kirk.”

“McCoy. Leonard McCoy.” He reaches across and shakes Jim’s hand. “Probably not the best circumstance to meet someone, the end of the world.”

McCoy glances at the door; the female security officer’s entered the Terminal, a trail of confused-looking passengers and staff following behind. Jim smiles awkwardly at them as they file onboard, and the officer walks to stand beside him. “I talked to my superiors and, guess what? They think you’re batshit.” She hesitated for a second. “I, however, God help me, don’t. I brought everyone I could find.” Jim nods absently; his focus is on the door, planning recklessly in his head a way to get everyone else safe, until the officer shoots the door panel with a hand phaser, triggering the security mechanism with a long, loud screech.

“Jesus,” McCoy swears, jumping back. “What did you do that for?”

“We haven’t got time to head back and try and convince people; the field’s at least a five minute journey, even at a sprint, then five minutes back, presuming everyone turns round and believes us at once - which is unlikely.” Jim’s still staring at the door, heart going mental. “We should go,” she adds, finally. “If you really do think something’s up then it’s now or never.” It’s blunt and a little disgusting, and it doesn’t settle right in Jim’s head, but he knows it’s true.

“God help them,” McCoy answers softly, his eyes on the Terminal’s door.

Jim catches the officer’s arm just before she gets inside the shuttle. “What’s your name?”

She raises a single eyebrow. “Cassie.”

“Jim Kirk. Thanks, Cassie.”

Inside the shuttle, McCoy sits down a moment after he does, strapping himself in with the harness. “‘Thanks, Cassie’?” he echoes, shaking his head with a snort. “Talk about bad timing.”

Jim grins. “There’s no such thing as bad timing.”

The shuttle’s engine fires up beneath his feet, and McCoy, to his left, slowly shuts his eyes, his mouth tight and pained. Jim’s head falls back and he shakes with the shuttle as it clears the ground and sails above the airbase. Being the last on board, their seats are slightly isolated from the others’, right next to the door, a porthole on Jim’s right-hand side; he twists his neck to watch the ship’s beam plummeting further down into the planet, and then, with a bright flare of orange, it stops.

At almost exactly the same time, Cassie sticks her head out of the door, catching eyes with him. “We’ve reestablished communication,” she says softly. The shuttle’s not shaking as violently - though McCoy still has his eyes tight shut - so he unclips his harness, entering the cockpit. She flips a switch to her left as he walks in, activating the speakers; the airwaves are full of orders, shouting and confusion. Jim listens for a moment, trying to make sense of the noise, but it’s going too loud and too fast to even pick out a single word. The shuttle itself is being piloted by an officer only a handful of years older than Jim, and between the three of them they hold a shocked silence at the chaotic sounds of the planet below. “Do you know what it’s doing?”

Cassie reaches over and pushes one of the feeds across the screen - it’s haywiring madly, screeching out warnings that make Jim’s ears ring. “This just came through from the head office.”

“Gravitational readings?” Jim realises as he peers closer, and Cassie nods.

“Yeah, we need access to the planet’s patterns, so we can advise the pilots… but it’s not making any sense - that looks like…” She points to a pulsing dot on the screen. “That looks like it’s coming from the centre of the Earth.”

Jim leans over her shoulder. “That’s a singularity.”

“A motherfucking black hole,” the pilot, to Jim’s right, breathes out, paling considerably.

Jim reaches out his finger and cuts off the comms device.

“We’ve cleared the planet’s atmosphere,” the pilot says, his voice a little shaky. The calculation flashes up on screen, rimmed in a healthy green. “We’re far enough away to be…” Safe. Jim looks out of the viewscreen at the space around them; there’s no sight of any other ship in the sky, other than the one over Earth. They could have gone to warp, though, by now, or left the planet much sooner than they had - they’re not the only ones -

“Jim - Jim, you’ve got to look at this.” McCoy’s voice comes from back inside the main shuttle, and Jim walks over to him, crouching down next to the porthole beside his seat.

The alien ship peels away from the planet. Then, slowly, with deathless accuracy and absolutely no warning at all, the Earth crumples into itself and is gone.

Part Two