TB2020 – One Spectacular Fuck Up

Title: One Spectacular Fuck Up
Author: Saydria Wolfe
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Genre: Accidental Mental Bonds, Premeditated Parent Trapping
Relationships: James T Kirk/Spock, Leonard “Bones” McCoy/Nyota Uhura, Christine Chapel/Montgomery Scott, Hikaru Sulu/Ben Sulu
Author’s Notes: This was supposed to be Crack Taken Seriously but I’m not quite sure I managed. Still, I like what I wrote so here you go.
Challenge: Just Write Trope Bingo, Square: Accidental Child Acquisition
Beta: PN Ztivokreb
Word Count: 2,125
Summary: Star Fleet sees a golden PR opportunity in the settling of New Vulcan. It is one spectacular fuck up.

 

 

“We have dedicated the next year of service for the Enterprise to assisting the establishment of the new Vulcan homeworld,” Admiral Pike said toward the end of Jim and Spock’s virtual briefing. They were already ferrying the Vulcan High Council and what was left of their households to the newly selected planet—their first mission after their girl had finally been repaired.

Jim had been grateful for the assignment at the time—six months on the ground had been five and a half too many for him. He hadn’t thought of it as a portent of his future…but be found he didn’t mind.

“I understand,” Jim nodded as he replied.

“Now that several housing units and basic community buildings have been completed, Vulcans will be arriving to take possession of the planet,” Pike continued, looking fairly uncomfortable around the edges. “The Admiralty believes it would be best for the command crew of the Enterprise to remain on hand for this process. To assure these…traumatized citizens of the Federation that they are safe on their new planet and that Starfleet remains dedicated to their protection.”

Jim frowned. “Sir?” He could see the benefits of such a simple thing—the media had been calling them the Protectors of the Federation. Jim had accepted that it was part and parcel of captaining the flagship and did his best to let the attention roll off his back as much as possible.

But he wasn’t sure why it made Pike uncomfortable.

“There will be press covering the Landings,” Admiral Komak interjected when Pike hesitated. “We expect you to wear your dress uniforms and charm the cameras. This is a public relations and recruitment opportunity without equal. You will not waste it.”

Jim had to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent the noise of understanding from leaving his mouth. This was what Pike hadn’t liked.

“Has the Vulcan High Council agreed to this exploitation of our people?” Spock asked before Jim felt the need.

“The High Council has agreed to the logic of documenting their people are making.” Komak shot Spock a warning look. “The Enterprise command crew are heroes. What could make a delicate, endangered person feel safer than a hero? The arrangement benefits all parties, there is no exploitation.”

“We understand, sir,” Jim interjected before Spock could put a foot in it. “Commander Spock and I would like it officially logged that we object to this plan. We will, of course, follow our orders to the best of our ability, but we both agree that this plan will backfire in ways none of us has the context to anticipate.”

Komak shot him a superior look, clearly thinking he had won this round.

It was Pike that nodded decisively and said, “Noted.”

-*-

“This is damnfool nonsense,” Bones muttered again. The same way he had every time the Enterprise’s Senior Staff had gathered for a Landing ceremony.

Mostly, every ceremony was the Vulcan High Council greeting the new arrivals, reminding them that Vulcan law had been transferred wholesale to their new home and that Clan Lands had been distributed in accordance to the backup records that had survived—thank god for off-planet data backup.

It was all said in High Golic, which Jim supposed was what made it seem so fascinating to those that did not speak the language. He wondered if the news vids bothered to provide translations or if they were trying to enhance the mystic of what it was to be Vulcan.

All the crew did was stand to one side as the arrivals disembarked from the shuttles ferrying them down from the much larger transport ships in orbit.

Bones settled back with nothing more than a frown as the latest shuttle hissed open. Children, all female, started to flow out of the shuttle. There wasn’t an adult with them so far as Jim could see, marking them as orphans, all.

A half dozen kids ranging from eight to twelve came first—school children, he guessed. Probably evacuated by a teacher or temporary day-guardian of some type.

Then came a child that couldn’t be more than a toddler to Jim’s untrained eye. The moment she stepped onto solid planet, she stopped, and the line stopped with her. Her face screwed up in distress and she started to scream her fear and pain, vocally and mentally.

None of the Vulcans reacted. They stared at the child, more than a little dumbfounded.

“Goddammit,” Bones muttered as he broke ranks. He marched swiftly up to the kid and swept her up in a careful embrace, Uhura two steps behind him.

The kid flailed as she was moved and when her hand connected to Bones’s face, Jim could hear a snap in part of his brain that he couldn’t identify—the part that had told him as many details as he could process about the little girl’s previous distress.

Now, though, she was staring at Bones with wide eyes. “Sa-mekh?”

“Shh, sweetie, it’s okay,” Nyota rubbed the girl’s stress-stiffened back comfortingly. “You’re okay.”

The girl turned serious brown eyes on his Communications Officer and very seriously touched her face. Again, there was that snapping sound Jim couldn’t understand, but it was gentler somehow, less stressed.

“Ko-mekh.” The little girl nodded decisively and put her head down on Bones’s chest. One little hand pulled up toward her mouth like she wanted to suck her thumb but wasn’t quite undisciplined enough even in her distress to give in to her urge.

Bones and Uhura moved closer together, both cuddling their…well, their daughter, looking uncertain and confused but passionate in their mutual regard.

Jim watched dispassionately as the older children looked at the newly minted Uhura-McCoy family, looked at each other, and turned for the Senior Staff. Spock stepped in front of him, ready to defend Jim as a First Officer should, but the kids were not swayed. The ones that came for him, took Spock too.

Some went for Nurse Chapel, some for Scotty, or for both of them. One or two went for Checkov even though he was not much older than any of them, and the ones that went for Sulu touched no other crew member making Jim wonder if they could feel the marriage bond he and his husband shared despite the utter dearth of psi-talent between them.

All around him parental bonds snapped into place—though Jim himself hadn’t known the term for it until he himself was so bonded. With Spock as his co-parent.

They were lucky it was such a small shuttle. Otherwise the new family units would be too big for even the Enterprise to house. A laugh bubbled up behind his lips and Jim struggled to keep it in. His two new daughters were caught by surprise by the strength of their bond and had no such restraint left.

He could feel Spock’s exasperated amusement, but he still kept watch over the three of them as they devolved into a giggling heap.

It was pretty great.

-*-

“All told,” Bones said quietly as he stroked the back of his youngest daughter where she still rested against his chest. Nyota had returned from settling their older three—a pair of bond mates and one of the bonded pair’s biological sister—into bed for the evening. “You and I have four—though once T’rairis’s bondmate is located, since she believes him to be alive, that will go to five. The Captain and Spock got away with three—two girls and one of the girls’ bondmate. Sulu gained two—”

“Is Ben on the way to meet his new children?” Nyota asked.

“That’s what I heard,” Len confirmed. “Ambassador Spock is seeing that Ben and their boy are brought from Earth with all due haste.”

“Maybe now Ben will stop hesitating on getting his Ship Councilor’s Certification.” Nyota raised an eyebrow at him.

Len inclined his head and focused back on his PADD. “Chekov gained one—the elders said it is more of a sibling bond than a parental bond. Hell if I know what that means. And Scotty and Chapel got three.” He…didn’t hesitate exactly, but he proceeded with caution. He needed to know where they stood with each other, the uncertainty between them was not good for their children. “Christine told me she and Scotty are getting married. For the children. That they are mentally compatible enough that Elder T’pau believes she can create a proper marriage bond between them.”

Nyota raised an eyebrow at him. “Can a human mind even maintain a Vulcan marriage bond?”

“There hasn’t been any research done on it between two humans—such bonds are only made between two citizens of Vulcan and there were no pairs of married humans before we got reverse-adopted—but Spock’s mother maintained a hearty bond with his father. She was full human with no psi-talent and she was never damaged by it.”

“That almost sounds like we can maintain one, just not create one.”

Len inclined his head. That was what it had seemed to imply to him but there was no proven, documented, reviewed science behind it and an implication was not enough for him to compromise the sanctity of his own mind—or that of the children he was bonded to—for something so experimental.

“Is that something you wanted?” Nyota pressed.

“…I’m not opposed to it,” he admitted. “But I can’t rush into a marriage or an untested mental bond. That’s not who I am.”

“Me either,” she admitted. “I find the concept fascinating. I read up as much as I could about Vulcan courting and marriage customs before I began dating Spock, of course. It was only logical but…”

“How is…that?” he asked gently. As far as he knew their relationship had been blossoming…but then they suddenly had children with other people. That had to be awkward.

“Were he anyone else, I would say it was a race to see who could break up with who first.” Nyota snorted. “I…care for him, but the girls…”

“They have to come first,” he said softly, and she nodded. “Jim’s already got a team coming to refit the Senior Staff quarters. He wants to know how many rooms our family suite will need.”

Nyota tipped her head in thought. “Three, I think. Four, if Spevan is located. We should probably consult the girls regarding whether they want to share or not but separating the bondmates is a bad idea.”

“So, we’re sharing?” Len asked, just to be clear.

“Why wouldn’t we?” she frowned at him. “What do you think is going on between us?”

Len didn’t know what to say so he shrugged.

“Would you like to know my five-year plan?” She asked—sounding teasing rather than annoyed.

“It is rather relevant to my interests,” he admitted.

“You and I will court each other for no less than three years. Should we agree that we suit, we will marry in the customs of our peoples and bond in the custom of our children—”

Len nodded. “We gotta set a good example.

“—before the end of year four,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “By the end of year five we will begin our reproductive negotiations. We are ambitious people with ambitious goals, we will have to compromise but I believe we can find a happy middle ground between Ambassador for United Earth and Chief Medical Officer of Starfleet.”

He started to object to wanting such but found he was unopposed to it. The stars knew Starfleet Medical needed some sense kicked into it.

Because everyone had been careful not to look too closely at the circumstances that put Kirk in the right place to save the ship and Earth, Len’s biggest reprimand after the Narada Incident had been for not comm-ing headquarters for permission to salvage Captain Pike’s spine. As if there was time for such committee-driven nonsense with a slug actively eating a man’s valuable nerve tissues.

“Last names?” he asked. Then he hastily clarified. “I have no problem with us each keeping our own, I’m just curious.”

“I am not opposed to hyphenation,” Nyota admitted. “Though Vulcan custom would make all of our children McCoys and they idea of not having the same name as my children is…distressing.”

Len wanted to offer to take her last name, but he found he couldn’t…actually. His ex-wife had married him for his last name, for the reputation his family had had for generations back in Georgia. She had kept his name even after she had destroyed him personally. He found the idea of shedding his last connection to her appealing.

Keeping his daughters from being connected to her in any way was also appealing.

“We have time,” was what he said out loud because this was something he was going to have to think about.

Nyota nodded. “We have time.”

 

 

 

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