Author's Note: This story is a sequel to my January challenge story, Fair Mirror, where the universe sustained a "chromosomal flip" sometime before the oldest members of the Enterprise crew were born -- thus, Kirk is a woman and Uhura is a man, etc. Sarek and Amanda, for whatever reason, decided to have a daughter and named her T'Sol. I may or may not do more of these stories, but I figured of all the TOS episodes, Space Seed really needed to be done. 
Jamie Kirk leaned forward in her captain's chair, squinting at the blur on the forward viewscreen.
"We're coming up on it fast now, sir," Spinelli said.
"Hmm. T'Sol, any ideas on what it might be?"
The Vulcan science officer stepped down from her station to stand next to the captain's chair. "Unknown. Certainly not an Earth ship; no missions have flown in this region in years."
"Captain, we're receiving a transmission." Lieutenant Uhura's handsome dark face opened in surprise. "It's in Morse code!" He opened the channel to broadcast the syncopated rhythm on the bridge speakers. "C-Q, C-Q," Uhura translated.
"Yes, I understand it, Lieutenant," Kirk snapped. She slanted a look at T'Sol. "Want to re-evaluate the odds of it being an Earth ship?"
T'Sol raised an eyebrow. "I shall be... fascinated to learn its true origin."
Kirk flared her nostrils.
"On visual, sir," Spinelli called out. A dart-like ship appeared on the viewscreen.
"There's your answer, T'Sol. Very old, but an Earth vessel nonetheless. Almost like the DY-500 series."
"Much older," T'Sol corrected. "DY-100 class. They fell out of common use after the mid-1990s."
"A derelict, perhaps," Kirk mused, "still broadcasting on automatic after all these years."
"Or recycled by some alien race." T'Sol stepped back to her station to gather more information.
"Bridge to Sickbay," she said, snapping a switch on the arm of her chair.
"Sickbay, McCoy here," the doctor's bourbon-soaked accent replied.
"What do life science sensors have to say about that ship out there?"
"Picking up faint heartbeats, but nothing human, about four beats per minute. No indication of respiration. It may not even be safe for us to go over there."
Kirk flipped another switch. "Weapons status?"
"Deflectors on maximum, sir, and phasers manned."
T'Sol straightened from her scanner and interrupted. "Some sort of equipment functioning over there, Captain."
"All decks to full alert," Kirk ordered. "Pull up and pace it, Spinelli. I want to know what's over there."
*
Captain's Log, stardate 3141.9. We have been pacing the antiquated Earth ship for an hour, with no response from the presumed inhabitants. Their equipment appears to be operable, yet our hails go unanswered.
Leni McCoy strolled onto the bridge, taking her time in observing the crew at work. T'Sol was absorbed in her scanner, and Jamie Kirk was closing out a log entry. Everyone else was bent to their tasks, although Lieutenant Uhura waved a quick hello. They were still at alert, but had muted the alarms, which were more aggravating than anything else. At least, that's how Leni thought of them.
"Bones," Kirk beckoned. "Anything new?"
Leni joined the captain on the command deck and leaned back against the handrail. "Well, there's definitely a breathable atmosphere over there. Not sure who it's for, though, since our friends don't seem to be breathin' it. About sixty or seventy of 'em, near as we can tell."
"Aliens, then?"
"Possibly." She shrugged. "If they're not answering the phone, you might have to go over and find out why."
T'Sol, joining them, raised her eyebrow at the outdated turn of phrase, but restricted her comments to the matter at hand. "The vessel has, as the doctor might say, 'taken a beating', but with scanner enhancement I was able to make out a name. The S.S. Botany Bay."
Kirk brightened. "So you can check the registry."
"It is not listed," T'Sol said, shaking her head slightly. "However, records from that time period are fragmentary at best. It was near the end of the era of the so-called 'world wars'."
Leni and Jamie exchanged a look. "The Eugenics Wars," Leni said. "Dark, dark time... we've still got laws on the books to stop those sort of atrocities ever happening again."
"Humanity's attempt to improve the species through selective breeding," T'Sol began.
"Hmph," Leni interrupted. "As if Vulcans can say anything about selective breeding. Y'all may be secretive, but I know enough to know superior strength and intellect doesn't just crop up in an entire species at once."
"Touché, doctor."
"Besides which," she continued, warming to the idea of an intellectual scuffle, "it wasn't the entire race. It was a group of rogue scientists, mucking about in DNA before they had the full picture, thinkin' they were bein' logical--"
"You can hardly blame logic for the flawed actions of an emotional species," T'Sol interrupted.
Jamie's voice overrode them both. "Enough, ladies. As you were." She got up out of her chair. Leni recognized the signs of "too much talk, not enough action". "Helm, lock on with tractors."
"Locking on, aye."
"Ms. T'Sol, you have the bridge. Doctor, care to join me in a landing party?"
"Hey, when I said you could go visitin', I didn't mean you could take me along," Leni protested.
"And I didn't mean you had a choice," Kirk grinned, bowing the doctor ahead of her into the turbolift. As Leni held the door open, the captain spun back, her ponytail flying behind her. "I'll need someone familiar with late 20th century history. Call that historian down, we'll give him something to do for a change. What's his name, McGivers?" Kirk pronounced it phonetically, with a short i.
"Mac-guy-vers," T'Sol corrected.
Kirk nodded shortly as the turbolift closed on them. "And Scotty too!" She twisted the control and told the computer, "Deck Six."
Leni bided her time until Jamie relaxed back against the wall. "So, how're you feeling?"
Jamie shot a dirty look at her. "I feel fine."
"Just askin'." Leni tapped her toe briefly. "You sure you should go over there?"
"You just said it was safe."
"I just said there was breathable air. That's a whole different thing from safe, James, and you know it."
"I'll be fine." Jamie grinned wickedly. "Besides, you'll be right there to keep an eye on me."
"Your faith in me is... terrifying."
*
"The following personnel report to Transporter Room One: Engineer Scott, Lieutenant McGivers. Please acknowledge."
Daniel McGivers stopped in mid-brushstroke and pursed his lips. He was off-duty. Moreover, nobody had ever required his presence before, not a library specialist with a history degree focused on the late atomic age. Why on Earth now?
He set the brush down and reached over to his desktop terminal. "McGivers, on my way," he said, then switched the comm off. "I suppose you'll just have to wait for me to come back," he told the likeness of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian.
*
The away team beamed into an open area on the Botany Bay. Scott was headed for the nearest computer console almost before she was fully resolved. McCoy took a moment to shiver before cautiously looking around.
McGivers pirouetted slowly in the dimly lit chamber, taking in the glowing rows of glass-fronted cabinets. Each one held what appeared to be a human being.
"Bones, you've got to be kidding me," Kirk said.
"I tell you, I feel it every time you make me scatter my molecules across space," the doctor grumped. "There's gotta be a more civilized way to go from one place to another."
"You're just an old-fashioned girl, aren't you?" The captain turned to Scott. "Report, Scotty?"
"Definitely Earth-type, sir, an' definitely late twentieth century. Old-type atomic power, and the computers are run by... I think they called 'em transistors."
"Don't we have transistors?"
"Same name, similar purpose, totally different animal," Scott shook her head. Her freckled nose wrinkled. "Amazin' it lasted this long, but I suppose that's what it was built for. I'd love to take it down to parts and see how it works."
"Ha, maybe later," Kirk smiled.
"Captain, it's a sleeper ship," McGivers interrupted.
"Suspended animation?" she said, peering into the nearest bunk.
"Mm-hmm," the historian agreed. "Necessary because of the long travel time between planets, pre-warp. In fact, until around 2018 ships couldn't even reach near-relativistic speeds."
"And those had their own problems," McCoy added.
"Right. I've seen old photographs of these. They were usually timed to wake the crew when they reached their destination."
"So either they haven't reached their destination yet," the captain mused, "or they didn't have one set. Their automated call signal might support that theory. Do you suppose they're still alive, Bones?"
"After all this time?" she said. "Well, theoretically possible. Most of them have those absurdly slow heartbeats I picked up earlier. But that's no guarantee."
"I found the light switch," Scott called out, and suddenly the room was bright as daylight.
The bodies in the suspended animation chambers came into sharp relief, and McGivers gasped in surprise. "What beautiful people!" he said, walking around to get a better look.
"I've got a new reading, James," McCoy muttered. "Someone's breathing."
The very next bunk McGivers looked at contained a hawkish, tawny man -- and he was breathing. "Captain! Doctor!"
The two women hurried over, Scott just steps behind them, to crowd around the chamber. McGivers stared at the handsome man, barely listening to the others.
Kirk frowned. "Scotty, what did you do?"
"Beats me! The lights must've triggered something."
"Heartbeat's increasing, respiration beginning," McCoy said, running her scanner along the length of his body. "We might have a live one."
"None of the others are coming around," Scott said. "Perhaps he was programmed to be first."
"The leader?" Kirk said. Then, sharply, "Lieutenant! Could this man be the leader?"
McGivers jumped. "Oh, yes sir. The leader was often set to revive first, to decide whether conditions warranted revival of the others."
"His heartbeat is stabilizing now," McCoy reported. "He's breathing almost normally."
"He looks like a Sikh," McGivers murmured. "Northern Indian, Pakistani maybe." He refrained from commenting on the man's impressive musculature.
Scott had continued looking around at the others in the chamber. "They're all mixed types, black, white, Hispanic and all kinds of Asiatic. Amazin' cross-section of Earth."
"Uh-oh."
All eyes clapped onto the doctor. "What is it?" Kirk snapped.
"Something's going wrong in there. His heartbeat is dropping, respiration is -- well, look at him." The man was obviously struggling to breathe.
"Should we try to get him out?"
Scott dropped to one knee beside the others. "I've no idea how to open these bunks, Captain."
"If we don't get him out," McCoy said grimly, "he'll die within seconds."
Kirk swung the flashlight out of her toolbelt and slammed it into the glass -- which, fortunately, actually was glass and not some unbreakable material. She reached up inside and found the bunk locks, snapped them open, and pulled the door down. McGivers stepped up to help bring the man out into the freshly recycled air.
McCoy pushed the historian out of the way, digging through her medical kit at the same time and slapping monitors and stabilizers onto the man's chest. His long eyelashes fluttered, revealing a glimpse of golden-brown eyes. His mouth worked as he attempted to speak.
The captain leaned in, placing her ear directly next to the man's mouth. "How long?" she repeated. "How long have you been asleep?" The man nodded briefly, once. "About two centuries."
"That's enough talking," McCoy said, pushing Kirk away. "We have to get to sickbay."
Kirk nodded and flipped open her communicator. "Kirk to transporter room. Beam back Dr. McCoy and the patient next to her, and have a medical team meet them with a stretcher. Kirk out."
McGivers watched as the man and the doctor dissolved in a blur of sparkles, then turned to the captain. "What now, sir?"
Kirk appeared to think briefly about their next step. "Lieutenant, stay here and try to access their records, if there are any. I'd like a summary of everything you can find by next shift. Scotty, get a team over here to help him with the computers, and to learn as much as you can about the workings of this ship."
"Aye, sir," Scott said, turning away to bark orders into her communicator.
McGivers drifted over to the computer console at the back of the chamber. He already had an inkling what this ship was -- and he wasn't sure if he wanted his suspicions confirmed or not.
Fair Mirror: Space Seed
Jamie Kirk leaned forward in her captain's chair, squinting at the blur on the forward viewscreen.
"We're coming up on it fast now, sir," Spinelli said.
"Hmm. T'Sol, any ideas on what it might be?"
The Vulcan science officer stepped down from her station to stand next to the captain's chair. "Unknown. Certainly not an Earth ship; no missions have flown in this region in years."
"Captain, we're receiving a transmission." Lieutenant Uhura's handsome dark face opened in surprise. "It's in Morse code!" He opened the channel to broadcast the syncopated rhythm on the bridge speakers. "C-Q, C-Q," Uhura translated.
"Yes, I understand it, Lieutenant," Kirk snapped. She slanted a look at T'Sol. "Want to re-evaluate the odds of it being an Earth ship?"
T'Sol raised an eyebrow. "I shall be... fascinated to learn its true origin."
Kirk flared her nostrils.
"On visual, sir," Spinelli called out. A dart-like ship appeared on the viewscreen.
"There's your answer, T'Sol. Very old, but an Earth vessel nonetheless. Almost like the DY-500 series."
"Much older," T'Sol corrected. "DY-100 class. They fell out of common use after the mid-1990s."
"A derelict, perhaps," Kirk mused, "still broadcasting on automatic after all these years."
"Or recycled by some alien race." T'Sol stepped back to her station to gather more information.
"Bridge to Sickbay," she said, snapping a switch on the arm of her chair.
"Sickbay, McCoy here," the doctor's bourbon-soaked accent replied.
"What do life science sensors have to say about that ship out there?"
"Picking up faint heartbeats, but nothing human, about four beats per minute. No indication of respiration. It may not even be safe for us to go over there."
Kirk flipped another switch. "Weapons status?"
"Deflectors on maximum, sir, and phasers manned."
T'Sol straightened from her scanner and interrupted. "Some sort of equipment functioning over there, Captain."
"All decks to full alert," Kirk ordered. "Pull up and pace it, Spinelli. I want to know what's over there."
*
Captain's Log, stardate 3141.9. We have been pacing the antiquated Earth ship for an hour, with no response from the presumed inhabitants. Their equipment appears to be operable, yet our hails go unanswered.
Leni McCoy strolled onto the bridge, taking her time in observing the crew at work. T'Sol was absorbed in her scanner, and Jamie Kirk was closing out a log entry. Everyone else was bent to their tasks, although Lieutenant Uhura waved a quick hello. They were still at alert, but had muted the alarms, which were more aggravating than anything else. At least, that's how Leni thought of them.
"Bones," Kirk beckoned. "Anything new?"
Leni joined the captain on the command deck and leaned back against the handrail. "Well, there's definitely a breathable atmosphere over there. Not sure who it's for, though, since our friends don't seem to be breathin' it. About sixty or seventy of 'em, near as we can tell."
"Aliens, then?"
"Possibly." She shrugged. "If they're not answering the phone, you might have to go over and find out why."
T'Sol, joining them, raised her eyebrow at the outdated turn of phrase, but restricted her comments to the matter at hand. "The vessel has, as the doctor might say, 'taken a beating', but with scanner enhancement I was able to make out a name. The S.S. Botany Bay."
Kirk brightened. "So you can check the registry."
"It is not listed," T'Sol said, shaking her head slightly. "However, records from that time period are fragmentary at best. It was near the end of the era of the so-called 'world wars'."
Leni and Jamie exchanged a look. "The Eugenics Wars," Leni said. "Dark, dark time... we've still got laws on the books to stop those sort of atrocities ever happening again."
"Humanity's attempt to improve the species through selective breeding," T'Sol began.
"Hmph," Leni interrupted. "As if Vulcans can say anything about selective breeding. Y'all may be secretive, but I know enough to know superior strength and intellect doesn't just crop up in an entire species at once."
"Touché, doctor."
"Besides which," she continued, warming to the idea of an intellectual scuffle, "it wasn't the entire race. It was a group of rogue scientists, mucking about in DNA before they had the full picture, thinkin' they were bein' logical--"
"You can hardly blame logic for the flawed actions of an emotional species," T'Sol interrupted.
Jamie's voice overrode them both. "Enough, ladies. As you were." She got up out of her chair. Leni recognized the signs of "too much talk, not enough action". "Helm, lock on with tractors."
"Locking on, aye."
"Ms. T'Sol, you have the bridge. Doctor, care to join me in a landing party?"
"Hey, when I said you could go visitin', I didn't mean you could take me along," Leni protested.
"And I didn't mean you had a choice," Kirk grinned, bowing the doctor ahead of her into the turbolift. As Leni held the door open, the captain spun back, her ponytail flying behind her. "I'll need someone familiar with late 20th century history. Call that historian down, we'll give him something to do for a change. What's his name, McGivers?" Kirk pronounced it phonetically, with a short i.
"Mac-guy-vers," T'Sol corrected.
Kirk nodded shortly as the turbolift closed on them. "And Scotty too!" She twisted the control and told the computer, "Deck Six."
Leni bided her time until Jamie relaxed back against the wall. "So, how're you feeling?"
Jamie shot a dirty look at her. "I feel fine."
"Just askin'." Leni tapped her toe briefly. "You sure you should go over there?"
"You just said it was safe."
"I just said there was breathable air. That's a whole different thing from safe, James, and you know it."
"I'll be fine." Jamie grinned wickedly. "Besides, you'll be right there to keep an eye on me."
"Your faith in me is... terrifying."
*
"The following personnel report to Transporter Room One: Engineer Scott, Lieutenant McGivers. Please acknowledge."
Daniel McGivers stopped in mid-brushstroke and pursed his lips. He was off-duty. Moreover, nobody had ever required his presence before, not a library specialist with a history degree focused on the late atomic age. Why on Earth now?
He set the brush down and reached over to his desktop terminal. "McGivers, on my way," he said, then switched the comm off. "I suppose you'll just have to wait for me to come back," he told the likeness of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian.
*
The away team beamed into an open area on the Botany Bay. Scott was headed for the nearest computer console almost before she was fully resolved. McCoy took a moment to shiver before cautiously looking around.
McGivers pirouetted slowly in the dimly lit chamber, taking in the glowing rows of glass-fronted cabinets. Each one held what appeared to be a human being.
"Bones, you've got to be kidding me," Kirk said.
"I tell you, I feel it every time you make me scatter my molecules across space," the doctor grumped. "There's gotta be a more civilized way to go from one place to another."
"You're just an old-fashioned girl, aren't you?" The captain turned to Scott. "Report, Scotty?"
"Definitely Earth-type, sir, an' definitely late twentieth century. Old-type atomic power, and the computers are run by... I think they called 'em transistors."
"Don't we have transistors?"
"Same name, similar purpose, totally different animal," Scott shook her head. Her freckled nose wrinkled. "Amazin' it lasted this long, but I suppose that's what it was built for. I'd love to take it down to parts and see how it works."
"Ha, maybe later," Kirk smiled.
"Captain, it's a sleeper ship," McGivers interrupted.
"Suspended animation?" she said, peering into the nearest bunk.
"Mm-hmm," the historian agreed. "Necessary because of the long travel time between planets, pre-warp. In fact, until around 2018 ships couldn't even reach near-relativistic speeds."
"And those had their own problems," McCoy added.
"Right. I've seen old photographs of these. They were usually timed to wake the crew when they reached their destination."
"So either they haven't reached their destination yet," the captain mused, "or they didn't have one set. Their automated call signal might support that theory. Do you suppose they're still alive, Bones?"
"After all this time?" she said. "Well, theoretically possible. Most of them have those absurdly slow heartbeats I picked up earlier. But that's no guarantee."
"I found the light switch," Scott called out, and suddenly the room was bright as daylight.
The bodies in the suspended animation chambers came into sharp relief, and McGivers gasped in surprise. "What beautiful people!" he said, walking around to get a better look.
"I've got a new reading, James," McCoy muttered. "Someone's breathing."
The very next bunk McGivers looked at contained a hawkish, tawny man -- and he was breathing. "Captain! Doctor!"
The two women hurried over, Scott just steps behind them, to crowd around the chamber. McGivers stared at the handsome man, barely listening to the others.
Kirk frowned. "Scotty, what did you do?"
"Beats me! The lights must've triggered something."
"Heartbeat's increasing, respiration beginning," McCoy said, running her scanner along the length of his body. "We might have a live one."
"None of the others are coming around," Scott said. "Perhaps he was programmed to be first."
"The leader?" Kirk said. Then, sharply, "Lieutenant! Could this man be the leader?"
McGivers jumped. "Oh, yes sir. The leader was often set to revive first, to decide whether conditions warranted revival of the others."
"His heartbeat is stabilizing now," McCoy reported. "He's breathing almost normally."
"He looks like a Sikh," McGivers murmured. "Northern Indian, Pakistani maybe." He refrained from commenting on the man's impressive musculature.
Scott had continued looking around at the others in the chamber. "They're all mixed types, black, white, Hispanic and all kinds of Asiatic. Amazin' cross-section of Earth."
"Uh-oh."
All eyes clapped onto the doctor. "What is it?" Kirk snapped.
"Something's going wrong in there. His heartbeat is dropping, respiration is -- well, look at him." The man was obviously struggling to breathe.
"Should we try to get him out?"
Scott dropped to one knee beside the others. "I've no idea how to open these bunks, Captain."
"If we don't get him out," McCoy said grimly, "he'll die within seconds."
Kirk swung the flashlight out of her toolbelt and slammed it into the glass -- which, fortunately, actually was glass and not some unbreakable material. She reached up inside and found the bunk locks, snapped them open, and pulled the door down. McGivers stepped up to help bring the man out into the freshly recycled air.
McCoy pushed the historian out of the way, digging through her medical kit at the same time and slapping monitors and stabilizers onto the man's chest. His long eyelashes fluttered, revealing a glimpse of golden-brown eyes. His mouth worked as he attempted to speak.
The captain leaned in, placing her ear directly next to the man's mouth. "How long?" she repeated. "How long have you been asleep?" The man nodded briefly, once. "About two centuries."
"That's enough talking," McCoy said, pushing Kirk away. "We have to get to sickbay."
Kirk nodded and flipped open her communicator. "Kirk to transporter room. Beam back Dr. McCoy and the patient next to her, and have a medical team meet them with a stretcher. Kirk out."
McGivers watched as the man and the doctor dissolved in a blur of sparkles, then turned to the captain. "What now, sir?"
Kirk appeared to think briefly about their next step. "Lieutenant, stay here and try to access their records, if there are any. I'd like a summary of everything you can find by next shift. Scotty, get a team over here to help him with the computers, and to learn as much as you can about the workings of this ship."
"Aye, sir," Scott said, turning away to bark orders into her communicator.
McGivers drifted over to the computer console at the back of the chamber. He already had an inkling what this ship was -- and he wasn't sure if he wanted his suspicions confirmed or not.
