Revised part 5. Also this story goes into a (hopefuly short) hiatus, due to RL events.
5. Old Friends
Captain Kirk had been given VIP quarters to make herself presentable, while Captain Castro used her influence to try to convince Starfleet Command to help them. Jamie wished Captain Castro good luck, because if there was a constant in the Universe, even different Universes, she thought, chuckling while she stepped out from the shower wrapped in a towel, was the bureaucratic mentality.
She went to the bed and picked her uniform, which she had carefully laid out there before getting the shower, examining it critically. It was dirty, frazzled and even a bit burnt in the left sleeve from that battle, six months ago. It looked exactly what it was, a uniform that she had been wearing for three years now. Then she heard a noise. It cost her a moment to identify it as the door chime.
"One moment" she said as she hastily put on her underwear and her uniform. “Come in.”
The door opened, letting enter a pregnant Vulcan woman wearing a yellow jacket with black shoulders, an uniform variant that she had already observed on board, and the two pips that as she had already learned identified her as a lieutenant. If she was human she would guess her age at around 40, so knowing Vulcans as she did, she should be 80 or so. She had angular factions and a pointed chin, very Vulcan. She wore her hair in a shoulder-length mane of dark brown wavy hair, instead of the severe cut favored by many Vulcans, including Spock.
"I'm Lieutenant T'Sara, the Assistant Chief Engineer." Said the woman "I came to see if you needed something, Captain. "
"No, thank you, lieutenant... "Then a thought crossed her mind. "Well, actually, there is something where you can help me, there is some way to communicate with my ship? "
She seemed to think it for a moment before answering.
"Theoretically it would be possible to use the internal quantum resonance of the anomaly to... "
"Never mind the specifics, Lieutenant. It can be done? " interrupted Captain Kirk.
"Yes. It needs to be done, from the bridge, though."
"Let's go, then." Said the Captain, getting up from the bed and heading to the door.
They both walked in silence through the corridors of the ship. Jamie looked covertly at her companion with curiosity. Her face looked familiar, but she couldn't place it. She decided to place her curiosity in a corner for the moment, as there were more pressing matters ahead.
They arrived to the bridge, and saw that as with everybody in the ship was bigger that she was used to... no, not bigger, she corrected herself, as she looked better. The bridge looked more spacious that her own, but in reality it was really only slightly bigger.
"Hi, Jamie." Said Captain Castro, getting up from what she assumed was the captain's chair. "T'Sara"
"Captain Castro, Captain Kirk wants to talk with her ship. It's theoretically possible..."
"To use the internal subspace resonance of the anomaly with that end. Remember, I was a scientist back in the Stone Age." completed Captain Castro and turned to the Tactical Officer "Brigitte, help them."
The short blue-haired woman moved to the Communications station, which was just besides the Tactical station that she usually manned. T'Sara joined her and together started to work while Jamie tried to follow what they were doing. She had a good understanding of the basic principles of how things worked in her ship, but he could barely follow a third of the technobabble that both women were spouting around.
"Don't you have a Communication Officer, captain?." Asked Jamie to Captain Castro, genuinely curious.
"No, that position is usually filled by the Tactical or the Operations officer now." She said.
"Ah. Interesting... Do you have any answer to my request of help."
"Starfleet Command is still processing my request." Said Captain Castro "I think that they will say yes, but recent events have made them more than a bit paranoid."
"What recent events?"
"Near the end of the last year..." started to say Captain Castro, but she interrupted herself as she saw both Brigitte and T'Sara ending their work "I'll tell you of that later, Jamie. You can talk with the Enterprise now, I think."
Jamie moved to the station and asked the Vulcan woman, who remained there while the other woman had gone back to the station, where she yawned, before starting to run some tests on her station.
"What I must do to speak with my ship?"
"Press here." She said, indicating a blue square in the touch-sensitive surface "And speak."
“Captain Kirk calling to USS Enterprise” said Jamie from the Communication console. She waited for an answer, but none came, and she was about to call again when the lovely voice of lieutenant Uhura answered.
“Captain? We thought...”
“The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated, Uhura. Tell the commander and Len that I’m fine.” said Jamie, speaking the codes that they had agreed upon before she embarked on this seemingly suicide mission. ‘We can do it’ “Unfortunately we’ll have to come back there. The anomaly is not stable enough to let us pass, and we’ll have to set a device on our side to do it.”
“We?” answered Uhura
“I have found a Starfleet ship on this side and they are willing to help. I’m returning with two of their auxiliary ships. Their captain will explain further you more details.” She left the console to Toni.
“Lieutenant Uhura? I’m Antonia Castro, captain of the USS Corsair.” Said Toni, feeling strange, conversing with her old friend in that tone. Of course she was not her old friend in reality, but the voice was so similar... “An engineering team will accompany Captain Kirk in the shuttlecraft, and there will be another in one of our support craft. The ships will depart in half an hour. Ah, and I’ll go with them.”
Jamie looked at Toni, surprised. But she bit her tongue until they had finished.
“Your ships must come with weapons off-line and the shields down, and our shuttle must have an open channel to the Enterprise on every moment.” said another voice, a gruff male voice that was familiar to her but she couldn’t place.
“Very well. And you are...?”
“My first officer.” said Kirk, cutting her answer.
“He didn’t sound like...” started to say Toni when she saw the sadness and the grief in Jamie's eyes and added “Very well, we’ll do it. Corsair out.”
"After the lecture that you gave me you have the nerve to...?"
“I didn’t really mean it. I was simply checking your reaction.” said Toni. “If I have offended you, I’m sorry.”
Jamie was about to reply acidly when she realized that she would have done the same thing had the roles been reversed.
“Very well. But I hope that you haven’t more mind-games to play with me, captain.” said Jamie. "Where is my shuttle?"
"Shuttlebay one." Said T'Sara "I'll accompany you there."
"One moment, T'Sara." Said Captain Castro while Captain Kirk stepped into the turbolift.
"Yes , Captain?" asked the unflappable Vulcan
"What do you think about our guest, T'Sara?" asked Captain Castro,
sotto voce.
"In a word... fascinating" answered T'Sara in kind.
