Title: Giving Her All They've Got

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: Property of Roddenberry, Paramount, JJ Abrams, etc. Alas.

Rating: PG-13.

Summary: ... or, Ten People who Were Seduced by the Starship Enterprise. 10 x 100 words, Enterprise/Everyone.

Spoilers: Star Trek XI (2009)

Notes: A "Ten Things" experiment, inspired by (and cross-posted at) ten challenges (see subtitles) from the Drabble on the Edge of Forever collection.

Pike, Motivation

Every time Christopher Pike passes through Iowa, he stares up at the ungainly bones of the Federation's future flagship, clothing her with hull and starlight in his mind.

She's the most advanced piece of machinery Starfleet has ever designed: a reconfigured heavy cruiser with superior offensive and defensive systems, outfitted with the latest in scientific technology, the dreamed-of assignment for every Academy cadet. (There's a reason so many recruitment tours make a stop at Riverside Shipyards, after all).

But most of all, Enterprise is his. What records she breaks, what discoveries she makes, they'll make together.

He can hardly wait.

McCoy, Phobia

Space, he'd told Jim the day they met, is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence. Nothing he's learned since has ever managed to convince him otherwise.

It's also unexpectedly goddamned beautiful, and Leonard McCoy can't take his eyes off it as the shuttlecraft carves its way up out of Earth's atmosphere.

"Jim, you've got to see this," he breathes, staring out at the stars and the majestic white shape obscuring them. He's feared a shipboard assignment for years, but at the moment, all he sees is splendor.

Maybe that 'emotive imagery' shit isn't a complete crock, after all.

Uhura, Listening

Uhura's heart is still pounding from running through the ship, from supporting Kirk's crazy theory in front of the Captain, as she curls her fingers around the Communications Officer's earpiece.

This is what she's wanted for as long as she can remember. Why she's learned so many languages in addition to linguistic theory and acoustical engineering and every other remotely applicable skill she could manage. To be the listening ear, the mellifluous voice, on the leading edge of Starfleet exploration and diplomacy.

This should have taken years to earn. She shouldn't have this chance.

She's not going to waste it.

Gaila, Survival

"Forget the warp drive," Gaila says, tapping through diagrams on a wall screen. "We can still make Warp Three, and that's all we'll get until we can access the breach in the starboard nacelle. The radiation leaks are a more immediate problem."

"And subspace communications," a technician reminds her.

Gaila sighs and surveys the Engineering crew. Her crew now, with Olson dead and the senior lieutenant critically wounded. She isn't really trained for this-- but neither are the others, and the ship, their ship, is depending on them.

"Radiation first," she continues, decisively. "This is what we're going to do..."

Scotty, Dreams

Scotty stares around the bright, shiny bridge, at the gorgeous, stressed young officers and their gorgeous, stressed young ship, and fair to bursts with excitement.

There are security officers at his back; he's dripping wet; the lad he'd brought with him has taken yon Vulcan apart in a way that suggests there's much amiss with the galaxy at present; and yet-- he's on the Enterprise. And he arrived aboard her via transwarp beaming. He's so full of delight at painfully-deferred dreams suddenly realized that everything else pales in comparison.

"I like this ship!" he exclaims, anticipating further wonders to come.

Chekov, Breath of Fresh Air

Had Pavel not also learned navigation and tactics, he might have been a transporter technician or warpcore engineer. But he loves all the science and technology of movement; and it is all these skills he uses as he plots how to hide the ship from Nero.

He is still very young. And the world, he's learned, is cruel to young ones bright enough to upstage their elders. Almost, he does not expect the others to take his calculations seriously.

Almost. For he is respected aboard Enterprise, he's also learned, 'victor victor' aside.

Finally, he has found a place he belongs.

Sulu, Death-Defying

Sulu's fingers dance over the console, focused and sure. His body still aches from its last-second collision with the transporter platform, but the pain does not distract him; he activates the thrusters just-- so-- and Enterprise answers, parting the clouds of Titan to reveal the arc of Saturn's rings.

There are other things he loves-- the first bloom from an exotic plant he's coaxed to maturity, the weight of his collapsible katana in his hand-- but this! Satisfaction fills him as he signals the transporter room. The helm of a starship-- this starship-- is surely where he's meant to be.

Christine Chapel, It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage

Christine Chapel has been on her feet for more than two days straight when the chaos around her finally slows enough to take a deep breath.

Not for the first time, she wonders where she'd be if she'd won that bioresearch assistantship she'd applied for with Dr. Korby. Somewhere peaceful, maybe; not blood-spattered and exhausted from endless hours of triage, treatment, and organization.

Not draping a blanket around the shoulders of Dr. McCoy, looking worn and older than his years even in sleep, slumped in a chair next to Captain Pike's biobed.

Good thing she hadn't. Clearly, she's indispensable here.

Spock, Emotionally Compromised

The older half-Vulcan's advice echoes in Spock's mind as he walks out of the shuttlecraft bay: Do what feels right.

Illogical. 'Right' has variable connotations; would not joining the Vulcan colony be the correct, appropriate, socially acceptable thing to do? Was it truly just and proper to acknowledge prior commitments instead, as the other hinted?

To Starfleet. Enterprise. James Kirk. And Nyota.

A familiar stab of pain disturbs his circulatory functions at the thought of leaving, and he inclines his head thoughtfully in remembrance: Your mother would say, do not try to.

Kaiidth. His father will accept this, as well.

Kirk, Unity

Jim grins, rising from his chair as Spock, last of the crew to report, requests permission to come aboard.

Their exchange feels like the final piece of a puzzle snapping into place, one he hadn't even known he was assembling. From that first barbed exchange with Uhura, first 'pep talk' from Pike, first drink with Bones, first glimpse of her looming out of the dawn mists like the doorstop of Destiny-- triumph by tragedy, they've built something greater than the sum of its parts.

His name is James T. Kirk, and they are the USS Enterprise.

May the galaxy tremble.

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© 2009 Jedi Buttercup.