Nova Artino is your Worst Nightmare (littlenightmare) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-08-26 14:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, james kirk, nova artino |
Who: Nova and Kirk
What: Checking out Saturn
When: Sometime before the plot
Where: The Enterprise
Ratings/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete
Everything that Nova had ever learned about space travel told her that there was no way that she could ever see Saturn in her lifetime, and even if, somehow, space travel improved enough that she could, that it would take her years to get there. It definitely wasn’t somewhere where she could take a day trip too. But then, a month ago, she hadn’t thought that the kind of technology that could beam her up to a ship could have existed either, and she’d been proven wrong about that.
And there, looming up in front of the large cockpit window of the Enterprise, was Saturn, with all his rings, so much larger and volatile than Earth. Without thinking about it, or tearing her eyes away from the ringed planet, she reached for Kirk’s hand.
Smiling, Jim took her hand and squeezed it. Saturn was always a special place; all the planets were in their own way, but maybe it was the colors and the rings and the myth. Only Jupiter could compare and that simply by scale.
“Do you want to see it from the window in the observation deck? It’s a bit magnified here, so we’ll get to watch as we get closer.”
Nova nodded. For the moment, her brain wasn’t quite capable of words. And then she swallowed, and nodded again. “Yeah, that would be great,” she said, turning toward Kirk. “I don’t know how you ever manage to make it back to earth when you can see all of this whenever you want.”
“Loneliness, mostly,” Jim answered, truthfully. He nodded his head and led her to the turbolift, twisting the controls once they were inside. He really did need to get the Enterprise refitted, though a part of him was torn on whether or not to try to rebuild her with the A design, or with the design in his second set of dreams.
They were all beautiful, but he could only have one Enterprise.
“All the people I care about are on that pale blue dot. And there’s only so far this ship can go without enough crew.”
Nova followed him onto the turbolift. It was only her second time on the ship, but she thought she was starting to get a feel for it. She thought she could understand the loneliness at least. Maybe not the loneliness of being the only person on a massive spaceship in the middle of the Great Beyond - if the Great Beyond even had a middle - though she often felt that way when she was staying alone in her townhouse. She’d spent all her life lying awake at night surrounded by her family, now she spent all evenings lying awake at night surrounded by an empty house that made weird noises as it shifted.
Maybe she’d do better being alone and surrounded by the stars.
“Do you think you’ll ever find a crew?” Nova asked. “If you showed me the ropes, I might not mind signing on myself.”
“I could train up a few people, Dreamers mostly, since many of them have the knowledge or skill sets to adapt. Might be a bit harder for others.” Jim folded his arms, looking thoughtful, “More than once we had someone who came from an earlier time. It could take a life time to adapt. Some had it easier than others. Scientists and those like them. There was one woman, a friend, who brought much needed expertise with herself.”
“It seems like a bit of a shame that we can’t use the stuff in the dreams for the betterment of the world in general,” Nova said, a little slowly. She understood, to an extent. She didn’t especially trust what people would do once they discovered stuff like space travel was entirely possible, or once they got their hands on some people with powers. But it still felt like a waste.
“You have no idea,” Jim muttered. He’d tried a few things, mostly the sort of subtle actions that could go under the radar. But he also knew what even small changes could do to a society, and there was a reason the Prime Directive existed. He could imagine what certain governments or corporations could do with this tech.
Most of it would be bad.
Then he’d have to start arming the other side and then that would be a cascading cornucopia of escalating bad.
Maybe Nova didn’t understand. It just seemed wrong somehow to keep something like all of this from the general population. It seemed like no matter what, there was always someone who had the upper hand; maybe if everyone was on equal footing, the world wouldn’t be so bad.
Still, Nova hadn’t gotten the impression yet that anyone in the Orange County lorded this technology or their powers over the rest of the population. They didn’t use these things to show how much stronger they were than anyone or to subjugate them. Maybe that was the best outcome for having all this untapped potential.
“So, I don’t suppose you’ve found any other life in this universe of ours yet, have you?” she asked.
Some day there might be a supervillain. Kirk just hoped they had enough heroes around to deal with them.
He looked momentarily sad and said, “I can’t say I haven’t looked. At least, I went searching for a friend’s planet. But I also know how careful we have to be, we don’t need someone showing up thinking we’re ready for galactic society. Because we really, really aren’t.”
There’s also been that mess with the Citadel a few years back, but he was pretty sure that was a dream thing, too.
Nova frowned. If any alien life ever tried to visit Earth, chances were pretty good that Earth would try to destroy them, and then find our where they'd come from and destroy them there, too.
"No, I guess we're not." They stepped onto the observation deck, and once again, Nova was blown away at the sight of Saturn. It's scale was even more impressive from here, and she felt an ache in her chest. "It's a shame though. I bet any other inhabitable planet would be beautiful."
And Kirk was assuming the ‘here to be friends’ kind of aliens, and not the ‘here to conquer you’ kind. Even with all the magic and tech in the OC, he wasn’t sure they could withstand a full scale invasion. Some of the dream ones had been hard enough.
“If they’re half as beautiful as the ones I dream of, they’d be spectacular.”
“I wish I had your dreams,” Nova said. It wasn’t that her dreams were especially bad - her life wasn’t really much different than her real life; a little worse in some regards, but better in others, and more or less the same in most respects. But there was something just so rotten, so unjust about the world she lived in. Much like the one she lived in here.
“I think I’d like to be able to travel the galaxy and see all these other planets and worlds. You must look forward to going to sleep sometimes.”
“Yes, and no. I do love seeing these worlds, but when I wake up I miss the people around me. And I miss those worlds and the galactic sights.” A frown tugged at the corner of Jim’s lips, “One things they’ve taught me is exploration misses something without your friends.”
Friends… wasn’t really a concept that Nova was terribly familiar with. She had her Family, of course, and she loved them in the way you can love someone while at the same time knowing that any one of them would sell her out for a song. Or that she’d sell them out for a song. Not to the police, of course - that would demand retribution - but there were plenty of other ways to sell someone out.
“The people you dream about must really be something.”
“They are.” Jim smiled, clasping his hands behind his back as he took in the view. “People you’d die for, people who’d die for you. I can’t count the lengths we’ve gone through for each other.”
He’d damn near committed treason for both Spock and Bones.
It was almost unimaginable, and Nova tried to think if there was anyone she would die for. Maybe her Uncle Alec. He’d saved her when she as a kid, he’d taken her in, he’d given her a home after her parents had died. But she didn’t think that he’d die for her in turn. “That sounds…” Nova said, not quite sure how to finish the sentence. There was a part of her that thought that maybe she’d want something like that, but the rest of her recoiled from it. “Co-dependent, maybe,” she finished, a little awkwardly.
“One way to look at it,” Kirk replied, chuckling. “But my friend’s people has a saying. The Needs of the many outweigh the few, or the one. And he’s right, sometimes. They do. But if it’s at all possible to save him and save the many, of course I’m going to do that. Maybe I’ll die in the process but better a death for something worthwhile than one that’s not.”
His friend had the right of it. Her uncle had always told her that sometimes the weak had to be sacrificed for the strong, which was sort of the same concept - sometimes people had to die in order for a better world to come about. She didn’t realize just how widespread he had meant it, until the dreams. Her Uncle Alec - Ace Anarchy, in the dreams - had brought the entire world to its knees, toppling governments, destroying militaries, bringing a new world order so that people would stop murdering prodigy’s as babies. Millions had died, but he would have built a new world, a fairer world, from their ashes, if the Renegades hadn’t hijacked his victory from him and had changed nothing from the old way of doing things, except put prodigies on top. Much of her uncle’s work had been done before she was born, but she’d been raised on the stories of his victories.
Her uncle didn’t have that kind of power here, which was probably for the best - no one should have that kind of power, even if they only used it for good as her uncle had - except for the fact that it meant that change came slowly if it came at all.
“I guess I can understand that,” Nova said. “Maybe not the dying for your friends, but to give up everything for a greater purpose.”
“Sometimes, your friends are that greater purpose. But If I had to put the Enterprise between the Earth and the hammer of God, I’d do it.” Jim smiled, “Wouldn’t even hesitate, even if I had the full crew on board. Part of signing up is knowing death could come at any moment.”
Nova gave Kirk a bit of a half smile, and looked back down at Saturn. “That’s… kind of brave,” Nova said, a little awkwardly. She wondered if she’d be willing to make that kind of sacrifice. She wondered if half the people on Earth even deserved that kind of sacrifice.
But then, even if that half didn’t, the rest of them probably did, and she frowned down at the ringed planet. “Thanks for bringing me out here,” she said after a moment.
Jim nodded, half wanting to offer her a hug and half knowing any such decision was up to her. So he left his arms at his sides, studying the view as she did.
“Sometimes the best wonders are the ones closest to home.”