7th February 2258
San Francisco, Earth
(Ben's First Person POV)
Remember the first Iron Man movie? Specifically the scene where that beautiful reporter, Tony Stark's one-night stand, wakes up in his Malibu mansion alone, with the covers perfectly arranged to keep the movie PG?
That was pretty much how I woke up.
"Good morning, Mr. Carter. The current local time is 0700 hours. The weather in San Francisco is 62 degrees Fahrenheit with scattered clouds. There are no scheduled appointments on your itinerary," the calm feminine voice of the room's computer announced.
My eyes fluttered open. For a brief moment, I simply lay there on the incredibly comfortable king size bed while my mind caught up with where I was. Then I remembered, and a smile spread across my face almost immediately.
Oh yeah. I was in Star Trek!
As though sensing I was awake, the suite responded. The smart windows that had remained opaque throughout the night gradually became transparent, flooding the room with warm morning sunlight. San Francisco Bay slowly revealed itself beyond the glass, shimmering beneath the early morning sky. The Golden Gate Bridge stood proudly in the distance, while antigravity commuter crafts drifted silently between the city and Starfleet Headquarters like graceful birds crossing the bay.
Along one section of the opposite wall, a translucent display quietly materialized, presenting useful information with understated elegance. The day's weather forecast occupied one corner, predicting mild temperatures and gentle coastal winds throughout the week.
Another panel listed several cultural exhibitions taking place across San Francisco, including a Tellarite culinary festival, an Andorian ice sculpture exhibition, and an open lecture at Starfleet Academy discussing recent archaeological discoveries on Bajor. A final panel displayed the morning's Federation news summary, mentioning routine diplomatic meetings, scientific breakthroughs, and updates from various colonies scattered across Federation space.
It struck me how... peaceful it all felt.
Back where I came from, waking up usually meant being bombarded with sensational headlines designed to provoke outrage, fear, or anxiety before breakfast. Here, the morning news felt less like an attempt to seize my attention and more like a quiet invitation to stay informed. There were no frantic reports of financial markets collapsing, political scandals dominating every headline, or endless advertisements insisting I needed to buy something before the day had properly begun.
It was... civilized.
Stretching lazily, I climbed out of bed and wandered into the bathroom. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I put on a simple T-shirt, jogging trousers, and a lightweight jacket. Leaving the suite, I took the turbolift down to the lobby, during which time the environmental simulator greeted me with a view of Risa's beautiful bioluminescent shoreline at night.
Before long the doors opened onto the hotel's spacious entrance hall. The receptionist offered me a pleasant smile as I crossed the lobby, and I returned the gesture before stepping outside into the crisp coastal air.
The city was already awake. Office workers strolled leisurely along the pedestrian boulevards carrying steaming mugs of coffee while discussing their plans for the day. Families enjoyed breakfast at outdoor cafés overlooking the waterfront. A pair of Starfleet cadets in their distinctive uniforms laughed together as they boarded a shuttle bound for the Academy.
Nobody appeared rushed. Nobody seemed stressed. There was movement everywhere, yet none of the frantic urgency I had grown accustomed to back in my time.
I started jogging. The park surrounding the neighborhood was even more beautiful in the morning than it had been the afternoon I had arrived. Dew sparkled upon blades of emerald grass while unfamiliar flowers slowly unfurled their crystalline petals to greet the rising sun. Birds with iridescent plumage darted gracefully between branches, filling the air with songs unlike anything I had ever heard.
A group of elderly Vulcans practiced slow, deliberate martial arts beneath a grove of flowering trees, while nearby an Andorian couple walked hand in hand, their antennae twitching gently as they conversed.
The running paths wound naturally through the park, never cutting aggressively through the landscape but instead following its contours as though whoever had designed them had decided nature should always take precedence over convenience. I settled into a comfortable rhythm, enjoying the cool breeze rolling in from the Pacific as I completed several circuits before gradually slowing to a walk.
Returning to the hotel some forty minutes later, I headed straight back to my suite. Still pleasantly warm from my morning jog, I made my way into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. I reached instinctively for a handle before realizing there wasn't one.
"Start shower," I called aloud.
Instantly, a gentle spray of water cascaded from above. Curious, I held out a hand beneath it. It was already perfectly hot. I couldn't help grinning.
It was the little things like this that kept catching me off guard. Individually they were almost trivial, yet together they painted a picture of a civilization that had spent centuries refining everyday life until even something as mundane as taking a shower felt effortlessly luxurious.
About ten rather enjoyable minutes later, I stepped back as the water ceased automatically.
"Would you prefer traditional towels or sonic drying?"
I laughed softly. "Sonic drying."
A faint, almost imperceptible vibration swept over my body from head to toe. The remaining droplets of water simply shimmered for an instant before vanishing, carried away into the drain without leaving so much as a trace of dampness behind.
Shaking my head with a smile, I walked back into the bedroom, retrieved a fresh set of clothes from my storage ring and put them on. By now my stomach had begun protesting rather loudly, so I turned towards the recessed alcove in the kitchen that held the replicator.
"Computer, I'd like a full English breakfast, please," I said. "Triple portion size."
"Acknowledged."
A faint hum emanated from somewhere deep within the machine. Soft blue light briefly flickered across the interior of the alcove, lasting no more than a second before disappearing entirely.
Where a moment earlier there had been empty space, there now sat an enormous breakfast platter. Three perfectly fried eggs. Six crispy rashers of bacon. Several sausages. Grilled tomatoes. Sautéed mushrooms. Hash browns. Toast accompanied by butter and marmalade. Fresh fruits from all over Earth.
Every item looked and smelled exactly as though it had just come from the kitchen of a five-star restaurant. I carried the tray over to the dining table before turning back toward the replicator.
"And I would like some hot coffee, please," I said. "Jamaican blend, double strong, double sweet. With cream."
"Acknowledged."
The replicator hummed once more before presenting a large ceramic mug filled with rich brown coffee whose aroma alone was enough to wake the dead.
Breakfast proved every bit as delicious as it looked. The bacon was crisp without being dry, the eggs were cooked exactly as I preferred them, the toast remained warm until the final bite, and the coffee was, without exaggeration, one of the finest cups I had ever tasted.
Knowing that every molecule of the meal had been assembled by a machine rather than prepared by a chef should probably have made it feel artificial. Instead, it only made the achievement seem even more extraordinary.
By the time I'd finished, I was comfortably full and more than ready to begin the day. I carried my coffee over to the living room, settled comfortably onto the sofa, and picked up the PADD resting on the low table. The display activated the moment my fingers touched it.
It had been five days since I arrived in this universe. Five days spent exploring 23rd century Earth, studying the United Federation of Planets, and learning everything I could about this version of Earth and the civilization it had built among the stars.
Of course, like any dedicated Trekkie, I already knew the broad strokes of this universe's history. I knew about Zephram Cochrane's warp flight, humanity's first contact with the Vulcans, the founding of the Federation, and the famous five-year mission of the Enterprise. I could recite the names of legendary captains, major historical events, and even the technical specifications of more than a few starships from memory.
But all of that knowledge had come to me second-hand, filtered through television episodes, films, novels, reference books, and fan discussions. It was history as viewed from the outside. Now, for the first time, I was living inside that history. And I found myself eager to absorb as much as possible while I had the chance.
The history of this civilization was fascinating—and I wasn't merely talking about warp drives or humanity's first encounter with alien life.
Even in the 20th century, in 1968 to be precise, the United States of America had launched an orbital nuclear weapons platform from 'McKinley Rocket Base'. Following the launch, the platform developed a severe malfunction and began to re-enter the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. Attempts to initiate the self-destruct initially failed, but the platform eventually detonated 104 miles above Asia.
This incident couldn't have happened in my timeline – first off, there was no such place as the McKinley Rocket Base. But even if there had been, the technology necessary to create, build, and launch an orbital nuclear weapons platform was still in its infancy at that time. We had barely gotten astronauts safely into space, and they weighed a heck of a lot less than a nuke, or rather, multiple nuclear warheads.
Also, even if all of that wasn't a factor, this kind of incident couldn't have been kept quiet – the Soviets would have noticed something like this happening and would have told the world, or it would have leaked out by my time, many decades later.
Finally, while a non-proliferation treaty against the spread of nuclear weapons and their technology had also been signed in my timeline, this universe's version had been far more restrictive, with actual teeth, compared to the gentleman's agreement that was my world's version.
There were loads of examples that had similar deviations from my version of history. For example, the company Chronowerx Industries (which didn't exist in my timeline) dominated in the field of micro-computers; which seriously impacted IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, and had obviously kept them from ever reaching the lofty heights they would have otherwise; which in turn had knock-on effects on other technologies, but had others show up earlier than they had in my time.
Another example is the invention of safe cryosleep – now that definitely wasn't around in my old world, and yet here, the technology was stable enough to be put on a starship in the 1990s! We were still freezing the heads of dead rich people in the hope they would be revived one day in my time, not putting living people safely in cryostatic suspension.
Of course, one of the biggest differences from my world was the creation of the Augments.
I wasn't a big fan of the original Star Trek, so the only information I knew about Augments was from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan and a three-episode arc on Star Trek: Enterprise. Their existence was a major deviation from my timeline that began in the 1950s, where apparently everyone and their uncle was a mad scientist who began playing around with genetic engineering. Unfortunately, some of those groups succeeded, and the results of their programs would later be called Augments.
I don't know whether the Augment mindset was taught or innate, but they all seemed to have a contempt for all non-Augments and considered themselves to be superior to everyone else. So when they began to think themselves better than their leaders, well, there was only one way that story was going to end.
By the early 1990s, the Augments had seized power over most of the world before turning on each other and causing a massive war. Entire populations were bombed out of existence, ferocious battles were fought and the Earth was, for a while, on the verge of a new Dark Age. Augments had killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined and had almost ended the human species. No wonder they were so hated and feared even centuries later by humanity.
There were even more deviations in this universe's history. For example, there were manned missions all over the solar system in the early parts of the 21st century and some were even before 2016. Apparently the USA had mostly stayed out of the Eugenics War, and had invested a lot more money and resources into their space program than they ever had in my world/time; which was strange since I would have imagined that the USA would have been freaking out over the genocidal Ubermensch running around trying to take over the world. Something just didn't add up, but that might have been my own universe's history coloring my thoughts.
From history, I went on to other things. The education system of the 23rd century was quite a bit different from that of my time, with a lot more advanced science and math introduced early on. For instance, it was expected of most children to know basic calculus by the third grade. I found that kind of funny/sad because I remember barely passing integral calculus when I was in high school.
The economics of the Federation was a convoluted mash up of bits and pieces of communism, socialism, meritocracy, and barter system, with a few dashes of capitalism if you looked hard enough. Piecing together the available public information, this seemed to be how the Federation economy functioned in practice.
At birth, every citizen of the Federation was assigned what in my world would be considered a debit account. Of course the 'money' assigned to a minor child would be under the control and management of the parents.
Every month, a pre-designated amount was distributed to each household/individual in the form of credits (more for a child, less for an adult, who, in theory, could work to earn more), which could be spent as they saw fit on various things that were not provided by the government for free. For example, if you wanted a violin to learn how to play, you could spend a certain amount of your assigned credits to replicate that violin. Or if you wanted to use a holodeck, you could pay for that time with credits.
Communal access replicators were everywhere, scattered around most Federation planets. They provided basic food, clothing, and medicine entirely for free. Medical care, shelter, and access to the 23rd century version of the internet (Galactic Information Network or GIN, for short) were also free, provided by the government to all its citizens. A set number of transporter travel rations were also given to each citizen per month, for free.
All this was basically just for being lucky enough to be born in the Federation. If you actually contributed to society (in various ways), your monthly allotment of credits got bigger, which could be spent on luxury goods, better housing, more transporter usage, travel to other worlds, etc.
Purchasing a small in-home replicator was another thing you could buy if you amassed enough credits. At that point you were only paying for energy. It took time to amass the large amount of credits to purchase a replicator for a home, but many households in the Federation were able to afford it given enough time and savings, which spoke of the high standard of living most Federation citizens enjoyed.
Not all things could be replicated, however, as some things required exotic non-replicable materials, or required elaborate refinement, or the cost of replication was far exceeded by more traditional mining operations. The replicators themselves also required a lot of power, and those fusion or anti-matter power generators needed something to run off of, which is where things like ores and exotic metals and materials get added into the equation as they need to be found, developed, and/or produced.
The Federation Credit was a fiat money, as opposed to a form of hard money/currency, or commodity money, like several races in the alpha quadrant used. The Ferengi, for example, used gold-pressed latinum, a hard money currency, as the basis for their economy and was their standard currency of choice in all their transactions. They used this form of currency because items now had an agreed upon value, which made transactions between themselves and different species much easier as many advanced races highly valued latinum.
The citizens of the Federation simply didn't care about money in the same way the people from my time did. Earning it wasn't necessary to survive, which really did fundamentally change the pursuit of it. No one was going homeless, or hungry, or unable to pay for medical care due to lack of money. Making money didn't motivate them to go to work each day.
No, money was just something they used when they had to. They didn't even have monthly bills in the sense I was used to. No car payment, no rent, no mortgage, no food bills, no expenses for health care. That sounded pretty fantastic on many levels and was an achievement to be proud of.
After several hours of reading, analyzing, cross-referencing, and synthesizing a truly massive amount of information, I finally let out a long breath and set the PADD down on the coffee table. While I genuinely loved the Star Trek franchise, it had never been a 'hard science show'. That had allowed it to get away with fictional things like faster-than-light (FTL) travel, energy shields, and how changing the polarity of a device could somehow save the day at the last minute, without really needing to explain why.
Which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. The technobabble on the shows usually didn't mean much, often just a bunch of word salad to excuse the plot's MacGuffin, and I had always taken it as such. But now, that fictional stuff was somehow tangible and real, and I needed to merge concepts like 'Warp field theory' and 'Multi-phase discrimination' with the same fundamental truths like 'Don't spit in the wind if you don't want it to land on your face' and 'If you date a crazy girl, the sex is going to be amazing, but you're probably gonna get stabbed at some point'.
Leaning back into the sofa, I stretched until several satisfying pops echoed from my spine before standing and rolling my shoulders. Tilting my head from side to side, I cricked my neck, the stiffness from sitting in one position for so long disappearing almost instantly.
I wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked outside. The view had changed considerably while I'd been buried in my research. Gone was the soft golden glow of early morning. The sun now hung high in the sky, its light dancing across the waters of San Francisco Bay.
"I think that's enough studying for one day," I nodded to myself.
There was still an almost limitless amount of information left for me to explore, but I'd learned long ago that trying to absorb everything in a single sitting was a good way to remember very little of it. Better to digest what I'd already read before diving back into the archives.
Besides, my stomach had begun reminding me that breakfast had been several hours ago. And lunch sounded like an excellent idea.
After that...
Well, twenty-third-century Earth wasn't going to explore itself.
---
7th February 2258
Giza Plateau, Egypt
Do you remember Jumper?
Specifically that scene where David Rice casually sits on top of the Great Sphinx of Giza, eating a sandwich as though spending one's lunch break atop one of humanity's oldest monuments was the most natural thing in the world?
Well... I finally understood the appeal.
The warm Egyptian sun blazed overhead, pouring golden light across the endless desert, while a gentle breeze carried the scent of ancient stone and dry sand. Seated comfortably in a folding camping chair perched atop the broad head of the Great Sphinx, I unwrapped the grilled cheese sandwich I'd replicated a few minutes earlier and took a contented bite.
It was excellent.
Stretching my legs out in front of me, I leaned back and looked toward the Giza Pyramid complex spread across the desert below.
"Thank God you survived," I muttered.
Not that the pyramids particularly cared about my gratitude.
For the past five days, I'd been playing tourist across 23rd-century Earth, taking shameless advantage of my portals to visit places that would have taken ordinary travellers weeks—or months—to see. The Federation's transporter network was incredibly efficient, no doubt, but my own methods remained considerably more convenient.
World War III had left scars upon this planet that even two centuries of peace hadn't entirely erased. Entire cities had vanished during the conflict. Countless historical landmarks had simply ceased to exist, reduced to rubble during humanity's darkest hour before being lost forever. Standing atop the Sphinx, I found myself appreciating every surviving monument all the more because I knew how close humanity had come to losing them.
Fortunately, many of civilization's greatest treasures had endured.
My first destination after settling into San Francisco had been Bozeman, Montana. Not because of its scenery, though it had been beautiful enough, but because history had changed there.
The Phoenix launch site had long since become one of the most important historical locations on Earth. Surrounding the preserved missile silo where Zephram Cochrane had launched humanity's first warp-capable vessel stood an enormous museum and memorial complex visited by millions every year. Standing before the humble launch facility where one eccentric engineer had changed the destiny of an entire species had been surprisingly emotional.
It was impossible not to feel something while standing on the very ground where humanity had first reached beyond its cradle... and been greeted by another civilization instead of silence.
The following day I'd travelled to Paris.
The Eiffel Tower still dominated the skyline exactly as it had for centuries, its familiar lattice of iron rising proudly above the Seine. Yet the city surrounding it had evolved into something extraordinary. Elegant towers of glass and transparent aluminium stood beside centuries-old stone buildings without either diminishing the other. Hanging gardens spilled gracefully from terraces high above tree-lined boulevards, while parks and public squares seemed even more numerous than I remembered from photographs.
It wasn't merely one of Earth's great cities anymore. Paris had become the capital of the United Federation of Planets.
Only a short distance from the Eiffel Tower stood the Palais de la Concorde, home to the office of the Federation President. Somewhere inside those walls, representatives from over a hundred and fifty member worlds debated policies affecting trillions of citizens scattered across hundreds of light-years.
A city once known for revolutions, emperors, and world wars had become the administrative heart of one of history's greatest peaceful alliances.
The Great Wall of China still snaked across mountains and valleys exactly as it had for over two thousand years, its immense length visible even from orbit—not because of some persistent myth, but because twenty-third-century sensors made such observations laughably trivial. Walking along those ancient stones, I couldn't help thinking about the countless labourers who had built it one brick at a time, never imagining that one day their descendants would walk among the stars.
Rome had been equally breathtaking. The Colosseum stood beneath an impossibly blue Mediterranean sky, every weathered stone lovingly restored without erasing the marks left by nearly two millennia of history. Rather than surrounding it with souvenir stalls and overcrowded roads, the Federation had transformed the entire district into a peaceful cultural park filled with gardens, fountains, and shaded walkways that encouraged quiet reflection rather than hurried sightseeing.
Machu Picchu remained perched high among the mist-covered peaks of Peru exactly where the Inca had left it centuries before. Invisible structural reinforcement hidden deep beneath the ancient stonework protected the site against earthquakes, erosion, and the passage of time, allowing future generations to experience it almost exactly as its builders had intended.
In Africa, I spent an entire afternoon simply watching the Serengeti. Conservation efforts spanning generations had restored vast ecosystems that my own century had nearly destroyed. Herds of animals roamed uninterrupted across endless golden plains while silent observation platforms floated high overhead, allowing visitors to witness nature without intruding upon it. Humanity had finally learned that preserving wilderness often meant knowing when not to interfere.
And today...
Today had belonged to Egypt.
I took another bite of my sandwich before washing it down with a sip of pineapple smoothie.
From my perch atop the Sphinx, the pyramids dominated the landscape like mountains shaped by human hands. Their limestone blocks glowed warm gold beneath the afternoon sun, each stone resting exactly where workers had placed it more than four and a half thousand years earlier.
An overwhelming sense of continuity settled over me.
These stones had already been ancient when Julius Caesar first walked the streets of Rome. They had witnessed the rise and fall of the Pharaohs, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the birth of the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity and Islam, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars, the Eugenics Wars, World War III, humanity's First Contact with the Vulcans, the founding of the Federation, and the dawn of humanity's age among the stars.
Kings had come and gone. Empires had risen and crumbled into dust. Entire civilizations had vanished, and humanity itself had nearly destroyed everything it had ever built.
And still...
The pyramids remained.
There was something profoundly comforting about that.
For all our brilliance, ambition, and technological triumphs, some of the greatest monuments humanity had ever created had been built with little more than stone, copper tools, mathematics, and determination.
Perhaps progress wasn't always about replacing the past. Sometimes, it was about carrying it with us.
I finished the last bite of my sandwich and drained the remainder of my smoothie. With a casual snap of my fingers, the folding chair, empty plate, cup, and every remaining crumb dissolved into shimmering motes of light before vanishing entirely.
My little holiday was officially over.
For the past five days, I'd been quietly keeping another appointment besides my sightseeing. Invisible beneath powerful concealment charms, I'd made several discreet visits to Starfleet Academy, carefully observing one particular cadet without ever making my presence known.
James Tiberius Kirk.
Just this morning, Kirk had scheduled his third attempt at the Kobayashi Maru simulation for tomorrow.
History was beginning to move.
If events unfolded as I remembered, Nero had either already intercepted Ambassador Spock aboard the Jellyfish... or was about to do so within the next day or two. Once that happened, everything would accelerate rapidly. And Vulcan's fate would hang by a thread.
I slipped my hands into my trousers pockets and took one last look across the ancient desert.
"Right then," I murmured. "Time to get off my arse and save a planet."
---
7th February 2258
Starfleet Academy
San Francisco
(Third Person POV)
"So you'll do it for me, right?" Kirk asked, walking backwards for a moment so he could keep looking at his friend.
McCoy didn't even glance in his direction. "I have absolutely no interest in this."
"I didn't ask if you were interested," Kirk replied with an infuriating grin. "I asked if you'd do it."
McCoy let out a long, theatrical sigh before finally turning his head.
"Let me ask you an obvious question: why bother?"
"Because I've failed the test twice," Kirk answered.
The day's lectures had just concluded. Hundreds of red-uniformed Starfleet cadets streamed out of the gleaming white Academy buildings overlooking San Francisco Bay while just as many others made their way inside for simulator sessions, research projects, or afternoon assignments. Instructors chatted beneath flowering trees, shuttlecraft drifted silently overhead toward nearby landing platforms, and the warm Californian sun cast long golden shadows across the broad marble plaza in front of the Academy's main entrance.
Among the crowds descending the Academy steps were James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy.
"And you're determined to make it three times," McCoy said exasperatedly. "We've all failed it—everyone has. And that's the point. It's the Kobayashi Maru! No one goes back for seconds, let alone thirds—it's not like you need to pass it to graduate."
Kirk smiled as though he had just been handed the perfect opportunity.
"So Bones... why do they make us take it?"
"I told you to stop calling me that," McCoy said, annoyed. "You're very annoying, you know that?"
"And you're the best," Kirk grinned. "Thanks."
McCoy rolled his eyes. "You'd better study for it this time."
"Oh no, Bones." Kirk's grin widened. "I got a date."
"A date?" McCoy looked surprised. "Listen, as smart as you are, which ain't much, if you don't prepare..."
"You have no idea how prepared I'm gonna be." Kirk's expression turned positively mischievous. "No idea."
Just then, a few metres ahead of them in the Academy plaza, the air shimmered.
The distortion deepened and the very fabric of space appeared to bend inward, folding upon itself as though reality had suddenly become liquid.
Conversations faltered and heads turned as a brilliant circle of sapphire light nearly eight feet in diameter blossomed into existence in the middle of the Academy plaza. Wisps of glowing blue mist curled lazily around its circumference while arcs of crackling energy danced continuously along its edge, bathing the polished stone beneath it in an ethereal azure glow.
Silence descended across the Academy grounds. Nearly every cadet within sight had stopped walking. For on the other side of the portal lay an entirely different world.
A moonlit desert stretched away and everyone gathered in the plaza could make out the unmistakable silhouette of the Great Pyramid of Giza, standing proudly beneath the Egyptian night sky. The contrast between the bright Californian afternoon and the tranquil desert at midnight was so surreal that nobody seemed capable of speaking.
"What the hell..." McCoy muttered.
A young man stepped through the portal.
He looked no older than twenty, tall and broad-shouldered, with neatly combed dark hair. He wore a brown leather jacket over a white shirt, dark trousers, and polished brown boots. His calm blue eyes swept across the gathering crowd before he turned toward Starfleet Academy itself, seemingly unconcerned by the hundreds of astonished faces staring at him.
As he took his first steps toward the building, the portal behind him began to contract. The glowing mist folded inward. The brilliant sapphire ring collapsed into a single point of light. Then it vanished.
Only the faint scent of ozone remained.
The crowd instinctively parted before the stranger as he crossed the plaza toward the Academy entrance.
"Come on, Bones," Kirk said, already changing direction and heading back toward the building.
McCoy sighed. "I figured." He fell into step behind Kirk, curiosity getting the better of him.
They weren't the only ones.
Starfleet Academy existed for one reason above all others. To produce explorers. It was filled with scientists, engineers and dreamers whose first instinct upon encountering the unknown was not fear...but curiosity. And one of the greatest mysteries any of them had ever witnessed had just walked through a glowing doorway in the middle of the Academy plaza.
Dozens of cadets quietly followed the stranger toward the entrance, speaking among themselves in hushed voices.
"Was that some kind of transporter?"
"I've never seen transporter signatures like that."
"Maybe it's classified."
"I don't think Starfleet invented that."
"Who then? Vulcans?"
"He didn't look like a Vulcan to me."
"Maybe another Federation world?"
"It couldn't possibly have been a stable miniature wormhole, right?"
By the time the young man entered the spacious reception hall, a sizable crowd had gathered several metres behind him. He didn't seem to care.
Behind the reception desk sat a young Human woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, dressed in the Academy's navy-blue administrative uniform. She looked up from the holographic display floating above her console as someone approached her desk. What greeted her was an unusual sight: a civilian calmly walking toward her while nearly fifty cadets quietly filtered into the reception hall behind him, all trying—and failing—to look as though they weren't following him.
Nevertheless, she offered the newcomer a warm, practiced smile. "Good afternoon, sir."
"Good afternoon," the young man replied pleasantly.
"Welcome to Starfleet Academy. How may I help you?"
"I would like to see Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise."
The receptionist nodded politely and glanced at the holographic display hovering above her desk. "Do you have an appointment?"
"I do not."
She looked back up apologetically. "I'm afraid Captain Pike's schedule is rather full this afternoon."
The young man merely smiled.
"Tell him Benjamin Carter is here to help prevent the imminent destruction of Vulcan, the loss of seven Federation starships and the deaths of billions of innocent lives."
The reception hall went eerily silent.
Every whisper ceased.
Every cadet stared.
The young receptionist looked at Benjamin in complete shock, trying to decide whether she had heard him correctly.
Benjamin's calm smile never wavered. "Can you do that for me?"
The receptionist remained frozen.
"Oh," Benjamin added pleasantly, as though remembering something almost trivial. "And please add the following in your message to Captain Pike—USS Kelvin, lightning storm in space."
"Thank you."
The young woman looked thoroughly undecided. Protocol demanded she report unusual visitors. Common sense suggested she call security. Yet there was something about Benjamin's absolute composure—his complete lack of panic, aggression, or theatrics—that gave her pause.
Behind him, the gathered cadets resumed whispering among themselves.
"The USS Kelvin?"
"Lightning storm in space?"
"What does that mean?"
At the mention of the USS Kelvin, however, a deep frown appeared on Kirk's face.
"Jim, don't," McCoy urged quietly, reaching for his friend's elbow as Kirk started walking. Kirk gently shook him off without taking his eyes off the stranger.
He stepped out of the crowd.
"Hey," Kirk called out.
Benjamin calmly turned toward him.
"What did you just say about the Kelvin?" Kirk asked.
The young man regarded him silently for a moment. Then, a ghost of a smile passed over his lips.
"I was hoping you would ask."