Who: Kirk and Miranda What: A date in which Kirk takes Miranda to see Jupiter and its moons up close and personal. When: Early February after the apocalypse was stopped Where: The Enterprise Warnings: Family friendly
Accepting a date like this was highly irregular for her. Miranda hadn’t dated much, mostly because she had high expectations and knew what she wanted. Most people fell short of them. However, Jim had raised her expectations with talk of the stars and such. She was also curious to see if he could deliver on his talk, and just how well he could deliver.
Miranda wasn’t exactly certain what to wear for this date, and in the end opted for a nice pair of jeans and a nice top. The top gave a hint of cleavage, enough to stimulate the imagination, but not enough to be considered trashy. Miranda had class despite her profession. That was one thing she hadn’t lost after running away from her father.
She arrived at the address Jim had given her, and glanced around as she got out of her car.
It was probably cheating. Okay, so it was cheating, especially because he was pretty sure Isabela was going to make moves too but honestly who didn’t love a good competition. Or the thought of sharing.
He’d gone with black slacks and a button up white shirt. Casual-formal. “Good evening, Ms. Lawson. Are you ready to have your mind blown?”
Looking Jim over, he definitely was a looker, and she appreciated how he’d dressed. She also realized she wasn’t that much shorter than him either. She smiled at him. “I am, though you have gotten my expectations up quite high. And they are high normally.” Best to put that out there. Miranda never settled for anything. So if Jim didn’t quite meet her expectations for this date, that would be that.
Jim smiled, stepping next to her and offering her his hand. “Jim Kirk, officially.”
And as soon as she took his hand? Well, energizing would happen.
“It’s a pleasure to officially-” but Miranda was cut off when she took his hand and something happened that she had definitely not expected. It definitely rendered her speechless as her brain tried to catch up with what had just happened.
They stood in the forward lounge, large windows showing the Earth far below them, just in time for the moonrise. Jim smiled at her, stepping a bit to the side so she could really take in the view. “Welcome to the Enterprise, Miranda.”
Miranda stared down at the Earth, a bit dumbfounded. She was in space. She was in space. Technically still in Earth’s orbit, but she was in space. It was definitely quite the view.
“Bloody hell,” she breathed as she stepped a little closer to the window to better take it all in. “I’m in space.” After some moments, she finally tore her gaze away from the moonrise and looked at Jim. “Well, so far you are doing well, Jim.”
His grin widened. “I’m sure you’ve seen some of the dream talk. This is my dream become reality.”
Jim swept his arm around, indicating the ship.
“I have, yes.” Miranda had still wanted to think people were crazy for talking about their dreams like they were real. But right now, she could hardly call Jim crazy when she was obviously on a ship in orbit above Earth. “So, you travel the stars in your dreams?”
“Captain James Tiberius Kirk, of the USS Enterprise,” Jim replied. He maintained a polite distance, letting her take in the view. “I’m part of an interstellar organization who’s primary focus is exploration and first contact with other species, and inviting them into a united federation of planets and species.”
“Tiberius? Intriguing middle name. You don’t look Roman to me,” Miranda teased. She couldn’t quite help it as she looked at him before she went back to taking in the Enterprise around her. “So sort of a United Nations only in space that I assume is meant to keep the peace between the races?”
“Named after my grandfather,” he elaborated. “And in a way. There’s an elected council and elected president. Poverty is erased, crime. No one wants for anything, no one starves, no one is bankrupt over medical care. Even distant outposts have better living conditions than a middle-class family does today. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement from where we are now.”
Miranda thought about that. It sounded like a kind of Utopia, and definitely sounded worlds better than where they were today. “I agree that does sound like a vast improvement over the current state of things. So, Captain Kirk, what is your exact role in that society? Explorer of new worlds?”
“Exactly. As Captain of the Enterprise, I command the ship to explore strange, new worlds, spatial anomalies, nebulae and novae.” There was passion in his eyes. Above all things, Jim Kirk loved his ship, his crew, and his mission. “There’s a vast galaxy out there filled with untold wonder.”
The passion in his eyes was clear, and she liked seeing that. People should always do what they loved to do, even if Miranda hadn’t completely followed that advice herself. Most of what she’d done was out of necessity to support her sister and herself. “I imagine that you have quite some stories to share from your travels. You certainly have quite the beautiful ship to travel in, at the very least.”
“Many stories. Most good, some bad.” Jim gestured towards the red doors. “Would you like to see the bridge? We’ll need to be up there to get the ship moving, at least.”
“I would love to see the bridge,” Miranda responded, glancing at the red doors. She wondered what it would be like to leave Earth’s orbit. Humans hadn’t even made it past the Moon yet, so it was kind of entirely thrilling to her. He definitely was living up to his promises so far.
“Then follow me.” Despite his words, Jim waited for her to walk with him. The journey from the observation deck to the turbolift wasn’t very far, and it moved farther and faster than any earthly elevator could.
The sound of equipment from the bridge greeted them as the doors swished open. Jim gestured for her to follow him, and pointed at the helm. “If you want to take us out…”
Walking with him, she was a little shocked by the speed of the elevator. That definitely moved faster than any elevator she’d been on. After arriving on the bridge, it took her a moment to get her legs back. She then promptly stared at the helm, then stared at Jim.
“You seriously trust me to do that? I’ve never flown an airplane, let alone a ship like this. I’d probably crash us into the Moon or something.”
“It’s pretty self explanatory,” Jim said, putting his hand at her back to guide her to the helm. “Computer, explain the helm commands to Miranda.”
The computer chimed, and a woman’s voice said, “Yes dear.”
Jim’s hand flew to his face with a loud slap, “I thought I fixed that.”
Miranda couldn’t help but to laugh. “Now that’s not something I expected to hear a computer say.” She looked at Jim, blue eyes sparkling with mirth. “Is there something I should know about here?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Several times when I dreamed of the other world, there would be computer repairs. Once, they decided to give her a personality, and she proceeded to flirt with me relentlessly. Which is better than the practical joker personality.”
“Well, guess I can’t blame her. You are attractive,” Miranda responded with a smile. That had definitely not gone unnoticed by her. “Now, about flying this ship without causing a catastrophe.” Miranda was really smart, and she could figure technical things out rather quickly. But a spaceship was altogether different from what tech she used on a daily basis.
“She must like the cut of my jib.” Jim took a seat in the captain’s chair, leaning back and getting comfortable. “Just follow the ship’s instructions, most of this is automated, and we can’t go far without a crew, but the autopilot will get us to Jupiter.”
Miranda gave a nod and turned her attention to focusing on how to fly this thing. Which, it was easier than she’d expected. But that was undoubtedly due to the automation and whatnot. Still, it was entirely thrilling to be driving a ship like this and navigating away from Earth. “This definitely beats driving a car or flying in an airplane,” she commented.
The ship did most of the work, taking them out of orbit and into a cruising speed towards Jupiter. Warp speed was generally frowned upon within the gravity well of a star, so it would be about a 45 minute trip today.
Considering probes took years, that was something else, still! “If I could stay up here all the time, I would.”
Miranda watched as they headed towards Jupiter. Actually flying through space was beyond anything she could have imagined. The astrophysicist geek in her was having A Moment. Though hearing Jim’s comment, she tore her gaze away from the screen to look at him. “Day job keeping you on Earth?”
“Can’t go far without a crew.” Jim leaned forward in the command chair, resting his chin on his fist. “I’ve automated as much as I could, but a quick jaunt around the neighborhood is the best I can hope for.”
“How many people do you need for a crew?” She was curious. Judging from the size of the ship, or what she’d seen of the ship, at least, it seemed to require some sizeable amount of people to run it.
“Enterprise had around 430 crew during most of the first voyage under my command. Numbers would fluctuate up and down from there based on reassignments and needs, but four-hundred is a good bet for a Constitution-Class.” He ran his hand along the arm of the chair, a sort of longing in his voice, “Pride of Starfleet.”
Miranda watched him and heard that tone in his voice. “Clearly this ship and your crew are everything to you. It sounds like you, your crew and your ship all went through quite some adventures.”
“We did. It all feels real, like it really happened.” In both universes, the crew had been Jim’s family. He was responsible for them, for protecting them and being there for them. And here he was alone. Even Bones had turned around and left. Not that he could blame him.
“From everything I’ve read on the network, it was real in some parallel universe or something.” Miranda had gone from thinking everyone was crazy to theorizing about parallel universes existing. She also wondered if she’d dream about anything, and if she did what it would be. People seemed to dream about anything from the distant past to the future from what she’d picked up on. Even things that didn’t even take place on anything in this universe.
“I’ve got some experience with that,” Jim said, ruefully. “Reminds me to play you some of the logs from the Mirror Universe incident. And in my dreams I even started dreaming of a parallel reality to the first one. One where my father died the day I was born, instead of lived. That and other events changed many things.”
That caught Miranda’s attention. The fact that Jim was dreaming of a parallel universe. “That is...rather intriguing, I must say. Though I’m sorry to hear about your father, if you both were close in your other set of dreams.” Miranda never assumed people were close to their parents, mostly because she definitely wasn’t close with hers. Her mother had died when she was young, and her father was an asshole on his best days.
“We were. He saw me off the day I took command of this ship. Was a different story the second time around. But I’m noticing some things still shake out in the end. The same people still come together.” Jim found that interesting. “LIke the universe is trying to put things right again. Like it knows how things should be.”
“An interesting theory. Perhaps in a way it was. Possibly also the whole butterfly effect as well. Change one thing, and several others change as well. Though with the same people coming together both times, clearly you were all simply meant to be together.” She gave him a smile. “It seems to have done you well. You got to be captain of this ship in both universes, and explore the universe.”
“An entire ship lost that shouldn’t have been lost.” Jim gave her the cliffnotes version, a ship from the future, the destruction of the Kelvin, several fleets and a planet destroyed. A lot would forever be different. “Almost missed out the second time. Had a good man convince me to try.”
That was certainly quite the difference between the two universes. And yet it also fit to the parallel universes theory. “Who convinced you to try, if I may ask?” She didn’t know if it was personal or not.
“Captain Pike,” Jim said. “He did his Academy Thesis on the Kelvin disaster. I guess you could say he stalked me. Called me the only genius-level drop out in the American midwest.”
Okay so a part of him was proud of that. “Talked me into joining Starfleet. The whole speech about the greater good, about how my father gave his life to save the crew of the Kelvin. And both me and my mother since we were on board.”
“Genius-level, huh?” Miranda asked, quirking an eyebrow at him, though she was teasing. “He must have had a way with words. Or you didn’t need all that much convincing to join Starfleet to begin with.” It was interesting to see which camp Jim fell into.
“Probably a little bit of both.” It was an interesting conversation, one Jim didn’t mind having. But he changed the subject a little bit, hoping to get Miranda talking about herself. “What about you? What got you interested in choosing what you did, out of everything you could have done?”
Miranda glanced at him. “Depends on what part. The exotic dancing was out of necessity. I needed money to support myself and my sister, and when I was old enough to do it, I did. Before that I did whatever jobs I could to get as much money as possible for us.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Getting a degree in astrophysics, that was my sister’s insistence that I do something for myself. I only got the degree a couple years ago, and I have no idea what to do with it. So I’ve stayed with the exotic dancing and occasional modeling to pay the bills.”
“Do you want to do something about it?” Jim Was very interested in her answer and it had nothing to do with the stripper thing. Not that he wasn't interested in that.
"Find the thing that you want to do and love to do and make a living from it?”
This was a thing that Jim was passionate about; A life worth living was only one doing the thing you loved.
“If I found something I wanted to do? Sure. I mean, chances are I’d need a master’s degree to do much of anything in the field of astrophysics anyways.” Miranda hadn’t actually thought about what to do in astrophysics. She’d only majored in it because she’d loved the stars and planets and wanted to study them in more detail. “But I’m not above working my ass off to get what I want when I find it. I’m not the type to settle for less than what I believe I deserve and want.”
“That’ll only take a few years,”Jim replied. It would be hard, but he was trying to be encouraging. “Maybe move into practical physics? Or some other sciences. If you picked astrophysics for your first degree, I doubt it’s just a passing interest.”
On the view screen, the asteroid belt came into view. Contrary to popular media, it was mostly a vast nothingness filled with the occasional rock, but their path would take them past Ceres and a few other larger ones.
“We will see what catches my interest. But you’re right, it’s not just a passing interest.” Miranda looked at the screen with a look on her face that could only be described as a mix of curiosity, yearning and fondness for the vastness of space, which definitely looked very different from this angle.
“When times got hard, I always looked to the stars and wished I was out there. Sometimes it also helped me to not be tempted to go back to the life I had before.” The look on her face was replaced with a bit of a frown as she glanced down at the floor for some moments. Miranda rarely ever admitted that early on after she’d ran away from her father, on the nights where she couldn’t find a job or just found it difficult to basically be a mother to her seven year old sister when she was only sixteen, she’d been tempted to go crawling back to her father just to have the comforts and luxury she’d had previously.
But then she’d remind herself of the reality of being near her father, especially after she’d said no to him. Looking to the stars and yearning for a different life had helped spur her on. “I used to tell my sister stories about the constellations, of the figures they were named after. The same with the planets and moons of our solar system. I’d always wished to study them since actually visiting them in person was impossible.” She then glanced back to Jim. “Until you came along with your shiny spaceship, that is.”
“Almost like the stars called to you,” he suggested, getting to his feet and approaching the helm. He put a hand on Miranda’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. Like she was more than just a pretty woman he was trying to seduce. Like she was a member of his crew. He listened as he spoke, letting her tell her story. But he couldn’t help the excitement in his voice - like he was a bit of a child too.
“Just wait until you see the big red spot.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” she said with a little smile. Miranda hadn’t really known why she’d been so attached to the stars, other than for an escape and giving her sister something else to think about for a while. But she did feel a draw to them that she couldn’t explain. When he put his hand on her shoulder and was obviously listening to her, she did feel like he was actually listening and not trying to seduce her. She was well aware of the fact that she was attractive and plenty of people tried to seduce her. When he’d initially asked her on this date, she’d initially assumed he was trying to seduce her. Which was fine, she’d been curious how he’d try to get her attention in that way.
But she was also a human being, and they both clearly had a love for the stars. Which was surprising to her, but it was the good kind of surprise. “I cannot wait to see it up close.” And to see how large it really was. After all, no matter how many documentaries or books she read where it was described how big the red spot was, nothing would come close to seeing it with her own eyes. Then something caught her eye on the screen.
“Wait, isn’t that Ceres?” She asked. It was exciting to her to be able to see these things up close.
Miranda was ridiculously attractive, and just about anyone could agree even if it was only on a purely aesthetic level. Something about her just seemed to be well formed. But Jim hadn’t even seen her face except in a profile picture before approaching her. He’d been more interested in her mind. Body was a nice bonus.
“Yes, that’s Ceres. We’ll do a quick flyby, I’ll have the computer show the slowed version of it after we pass.”
What she was feeling currently went well beyond the whole kid in a candy store sentiment. There was genuine awe and excitement as she gazed at the viewing screen intently. She was completely soaking this experience in because she didn’t know if she’d get another chance like this.
“The times I wish I’d been born a couple centuries later when we might have colonies on Mars and are better able to travel the solar system and beyond.”
“Maybe you were. Who knows if you’ll dream like the rest of us, or what you’ll dream about. Though hopefully it won’t be too disappointing.” Imagine wanting to see the stars only to be born in Ancient Greece? It wasn’t terrible, but it could be… disappointing.
“With my luck, I’ll probably dream of being in some ancient civilization. Though I wouldn’t mind that so much. The ancients had a lot of knowledge about the stars despite not having the technology we do. And who knows what exactly they knew. The Egyptians, for example, were doing brain surgery millennia ago.” Miranda was highly intelligent, genius level I.Q. most likely, but she didn’t always flaunt it. Mostly she liked to catch people off-guard with her intelligence given what her profession was.
How many strippers had degrees in astrophysics, anyways?
Jim nodded, “That’s not my area of expertise, but I know people and I know people who know people, and they’ve told me a few things. The Mayan calendar, and everything.”
He’d seen his share of peoples of varying degrees of ‘primitive’ and he’d always felt that was a misnomer. Primitive didn’t mean stupid.
“Exactly. There’s so much that the ancients knew that has been lost over time. Humanity is an amazing race, capable of ingenuity beyond anything we have ever seen. People built the pyramids in Egypt perfectly at a time when they shouldn’t have been able to. So many ancient cultures mapped the stars and planets, even aligned temples and other structures to the precise angle of the sun on the solstices. Now to be out here among the very things so many people have gazed up at for millennia is unlike anything I have ever experienced.” There was passion in her voice. Miranda had a firm belief in humanity and what they were capable of.
“It’s what I was born into,”Jim replied. “This world of peace and exploration. A thousand thousand stars and a million planets, all filled with life and civilization. Some flourish, others don’t. Many of us don’t get along but more than not do. Human, Vulcan, Tellerite, Andorian and more. Over one hundred worlds, across thousands of lightyears. We share liberty and rights, peaceful cooperation and sharing of knowledge and scientific development.”
He gestured vaguely behind them, to where they’d left the Earth. ”We survive all that. There’s always hope.”
“I rather like the sound of that, different races getting along. Perhaps it’s not completely perfect or peaceful, but at least some of them are more interested in sharing knowledge and such instead of fighting.” Miranda would love to see that, to see humans spread out amongst the stars and grow. And if there were aliens out there, that they could get along.
“Perfection is unattainable. We’ll always make mistakes, we’ll always be human.” He leaned in, winking at her. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. I just wish I could show the world the possibilities.”
Well, he could, but that was “fiction” which wasn’t the same.
She chuckled a bit. “Unattainable though it may be, many will always strive for it.” Miranda looked at him. “It would be nice to show the world the possibilities of what could be. Sadly, we must wait for time to help advance humanity to the point where they can travel the stars and find it for themselves. Even if that won’t be in our lifetimes.”
“That’s the best we could hope for.”
He took her arm, suddenly, and guided her towards the viewscreen. “Look. There it is!”
Miranda was taken by surprise when he took her arm like that, but she was quickly taken in by the sight. Her jaw dropped a bit as she stared at the sight. “Oh my god, it’s beautiful,” she spoke in a hushed whisper after a few moments.
“You can almost reach out and touch it. I wouldn’t really recommend it.” He moved around her, keying something into the helm. The Enterprise would take a leisurely jaunt around Jupiter and past several of the moons, nice and slow.
Miranda was definitely staring. Seeing pictures of Jupiter was one thing. Seeing it with her own eyes was quite another. And it was beyond anything she could have dreamed of. “This is breath-taking. To see all the clouds moving in real time, not just in video or time-lapsed images is beyond words.” It was all she could to do to not press her face against the viewing screen.
Kid in a candy store, indeed.
Maybe there was something they could do. Jim watched her, then rubbed his chin. “How crazy do you want to be?”
Miranda tore her gaze away from the screen and looked at him. “What kind of crazy are we talking?” She could be crazy when she wanted to be.
Jim’s eyes flashed dangerously, “I used to go atmospheric diving into Earth. But I’ve never tried diving into Jupiter.”
Miranda’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “That’s a thing?” She looked back at Jupiter. “It could be fun, though how would we get back aboard the ship? The same way we got on here?”
“We’d have to be beamed or tractored back before we got crushed by the atmosphere,” Jim mused. “That, or a tether. It might be too rough for the transporter to get a lock onto us. Those storms are larger than the planet earth and some of those winds are well over 300 miles per hour.”
It was basically suicide, but that was fun, right?
“So long as we have a way to get back here before Jupiter kills us, why not?” How many times did someone have the chance to atmosphere dive towards Jupiter? “Everyone should try something suicidal once in their life, right?”
So spoke the woman who would eventually dream of the mother of all Suicide Missions and come out alive.
Jim clapped his hands together, “This is going to be fun.”