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ravenUnbetaed kink meme fill, but I didn't want to leave this any longer so I could at least have something of a present for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tau_sigma. Happy birthday, darling!
(Apparently there's nothing I can't write a Star Trek AU of? This is Cabin Pressure in a Star Trek AU. Yeah.)
Fic:: A Short History of Aviation
by Raven
5000w, Cabin Pressure, Star Trek AU, gen. All Martin ever wants to do is fly. Four failed sublight qualification attempts, a murderous asteroid field and the world's cheeriest empath make this a little more difficult than he'd like.
"Shields up, boys," Carolyn announces, walking onto the tiny bridge with her hands on her hips.
"Inner or outer?" Martin asks, and quails at her glare. "Douglas, can you…"
"Shields going up, Captain." Douglas couldn't be leaning further back into his chair if he tried. "Anything else you need doing? Inertial dampening? Phasers arming, gosh there must be some dratted Klingons about here somewhere, or maybe you'd like a foot rub?"
"That will do," Carolyn informs them both, crisply, and Martin regrets the earlier cheap shot. Like many Betazoids who have lived a long time with humans, she has a very strict ethical code about that sort of thing. "Gentlemen, if you were navigating an asteroid field – why, look at that, what a coincidence, I believe you are. Shields up."
Douglas, true to his word if still nearly recumbent, has done it. The low hum of power beneath their feet becomes a little more strained; technically, Martin assumes, they should fly with some measure of shield protection all the time, but mostly they manage with enough to keep the hull intact, and avoid quite blowing out the ancient engines.
"Anything else?" Douglas asks, still somewhat waspish, and Martin sighs. The passengers have been unloaded, the cargo discharged. This is, he decides, wearily, going to be a long trip home.
*
Carolyn and Douglas are former Starfleet. Martin is not.
"Don't know why it bothers you so much," Douglas says, stretching out in feline fashion, half-getting up out of his chair and sitting in it again. "Never did me much good even before they fired me. Sorry, before they dishonourably discharged me, I know you like me to get the terminology right on these things."
"It doesn't bother me," Martin insists, getting out of his chair. He's been sitting in it, ramrod-straight, for hours now, and his muscles are beginning to creak.
"Yeah?" Douglas looks at him appraisingly. "You're standing there shifting from one foot to the other rather than going to bed, which you're perfectly entitled to do at this time of night. You don't approve of the idea of leaving the ship on autopilot control overnight, and it's true you're in charge here, you could countermand that. But Carolyn and I have had Academy training, so you're worried we know something we don't. But the autopilot still bothers you, so you're standing there on one foot all a-dither."
Douglas is Earth-human, born and raised on Earth, and he doesn't have a telepathic bone in his body. He's just that good.
"Douglas, you…" Martin begins, but Douglas waves him silent.
"Turns out I wasn't that sleepy yet, anyway," he says, smoothly. "Maybe I'll just sit here with my novel for an hour, keep an eye on things, hmm? Off you go."
"Thank you," Martin begins, but he gets waved quiet again.
"Goodnight, Captain."
"Goodnight, Douglas," Martin says, smiling a little.
He turns to leave, waits for the creaking bridge doors to register his presence, and sets off for his quarters still with that small smile on his lips. Gertie – a civilian-made, Lockheed McDonnell Traveller-class ship, Margaretha Gertruida Zelle – is silent around him. Carolyn and Arthur went to their respective beds hours ago, and the only sound is the steady hum of the ship itself. Feeling silly but not quite able to stop himself, Martin places a hand on the wall to better feel it. Gertie is barely bigger than a shuttlecraft, with only enough room for cramped quarters for the four of them surrounding the original cargo bays, now converted for passenger use. She's falling apart in small steps, now, after years of the gamma-ray ravages of space, but she still has traces of her old beauty; she was designed in the style of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, and although she has more bathrooms and less blood-red lighting than her precursors, she has their clean, functional lines, and more power than most people expect, given her size. "Goodnight," Martin murmurs, feeling sillier by the moment, and retires to bed.
Hours later something rocks the ship like a tidal wave hitting a rowboat. Sirens begin wailing as Martin flies out of the bed in the direction of the bridge. He nearly runs into Arthur, who shouts, "This is a bit not good, Skip, isn't it?" as he falls into step beside Martin, and then they both nearly run into Douglas at the entrance to the bridge.
"Report!" Martin shouts, his hands already moving over his console, and he's getting the gist of it even as Douglas stands up, moves away from his panels.
"Impact on aft shields," he says crisply. "Part of an asteroid, no doubt. All systems down except basic life support and thrusters. It's going to take a hell of a lot of repairs before we're moving faster than a snail on thorazine. Oh, Carolyn-"
"I heard," Carolyn says, tiredly, framed by the doorway. Martin's maternal grandmother was a touch-telepath, and Carolyn is a powerful broadcast telepath; taken together, it's enough for him to sometimes, rarely, hear her thoughts. This time it takes him a moment to understand that it's her thought: it's an inarticulate feeling of weariness, of falling, that's only a slightly different flavour from his own.
"Well," Douglas says, looking at them all one by one, Martin, Arthur and Carolyn. "What do we do now?"
*
"Tea, Arthur?"
"Tea," Arthur says. He looks pale but determined. "I went to the galley and made it. It smells nice, doesn't it? I think we need something nice after that. Here you go, Mum… Martin… Douglas."
Carolyn inhales deeply from her cup before she takes a sip. They are in such dire straits, she reflects, that she's sitting unremarkably in Martin's chair. He doesn't seem to have noticed, let alone complained.
"Thank you, Arthur," Carolyn says, and takes another sip. The change in mood on and of the ship has him strained and upset, so she doesn't say anything, letting him be for the moment. She's aware of Martin and Douglas, the feel of each of their distinctive presences, but through long practice, not aware of their thoughts. She warms her hands on her cup, takes careful sips until the grounds appear on the base, and then looks up and says, "Well?"
"Well." Douglas comes to sit beside her. "Much as I hate to let these words even pass my lips, Carolyn, it appears that Martin was right."
"And how is that?"
"The autopilot," Douglas says. "It's an old model and it wasn't designed to handle an asteroid field with this fine a density. In brief, we were headed for a rock and we hit it before the evasive manoeuvres kicked in.
"That's not quite right," comes Martin's voice from under the console he's tinkering with. "The long-range sensors are shot. Even under manual control we might not have reacted in time."
"Options?" Carolyn asks.
Douglas shrugs. "None of us is an engineer. But we might – might! – be able to do enough repairs to get us to warp 2 or 3, enough to maybe limp back to Earth or Utopia Planitia or something. If we only manage to get back impulse, well…"
Carolyn sighs. They can't get to Earth on impulse power; they'll have to ask for a tow, and in this region of space, the only people able to do that will be Starfleet. Carolyn pictures Gertie squeezed into a bay meant for a shuttlecraft, and herself having to be grateful, and the ambassadors and other dignitaries they'll no doubt have to ferry around as a function of that gratitude, and shudders.
"Let's stick to the first option you mentioned if at all possible, please?" she says. "And you can all get on it immediately, first thing in the morning."
They all nod, and one by one, shuffle out, Arthur last.
"Will it be all right, Mum?" he asks. "Will Douglas think of something terribly clever?"
Not for the first time, Carolyn curses the physical impossibility of lying to him. "I don't know," she answers, and watches him nod slowly, and go out.
*
They're on the second day of the repairs when Douglas looks up and says, pointedly: "Fortunately, we still have environmental control and hydroponics."
Carolyn, catching on, says: "Unfortunately, Arthur's plants are still alive."
"Fortunately," Martin says, "we no longer have anything in the galley to cook them with."
"Unfortunately," says Douglas, "they've been known to spontaneously combust."
"Fortunately, we could do with the extra power." Carolyn's laughing. Looking up at the smile blossom on Arthur's face, she says, "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses."
Arthur grins and says enthusiastically, "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses and a, er, and a bucket and spade."
"That's two things," Douglas says, and Carolyn glares at him.
"You, work," she snaps. "And speaking of which, would you to care to apprise me on how that's going or shall we drift quietly in space a little more?"
"It's going very well, thank you." Douglas is sitting cross-legged under a console, looking very dignified as he reaches out to the panel above him with a tiny cauterising tool. Carolyn trained in communications and navigation, avoiding circuits, wires and relays wherever possible; she's no idea what he's doing. Martin is leafing through the Traveller-class flight operations manual on his padd, and considering recent events Carolyn is content to leave him and his attention to detail be.
"Speaking of things going well" – Douglas's drawl is pure treacle - "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, and a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle."
"Douglas!" Carolyn snaps.
"They do exist, Mum!" Arthur says, happily. "I've seen them!"
"That is not the point." Carolyn is pleased inwardly; if Arthur's mood is lifting, that means they're all on the way up. "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle - thank you, Douglas - and a cocktail shaker."
Martin looks up from his operations manual and says, smoothly: "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle, a cocktail shaker and a pair of green wellies."
"This is quite unfair, I'll have you know," Douglas says. "Luckily I have my immense natural talents to counterbalance the fact I'm playing a word game with a telepath and an empath. And Martin."
"You're avoiding your turn, First Officer Richardson," Carolyn points out. "Unless you can't…"
Douglas takes an ostentatious deep breath. "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle, a cocktail shaker, green wellies, and a banana."
"It's a pair of green wellies."
"Martin, do shut up."
"No, it is," Martin says. "It's a pair of green wellies. You have to get it exactly right, otherwise you lose the game, and it's a pair - I should know, I said it."
"Well, I clearly didn't mean three or forty or seven hundred wellies, did I, Martin? You know something, you are…"
"An anal-retentive, prissy stickler for rules?" Martin snaps back. "Martin loves the rulebook, ha, stupid Martin who thought we shouldn't leave an ancient ship on autopilot overnight in an asteroid field?"
"Martin, if this is your terribly subtle way of building up to an I told you so, complete with little dance of victory, then why don't you just…"
He breaks off at the sound of movement by the door. It's Arthur. "I think I'll just go and make the tea," he says, quickly, his face drawn, and disappears.
"There's nothing in the galley to make it with," Martin says, and Carolyn sighs.
"It's rather difficult for him, being an empath and a fundamentally nice person and sharing a ship with you two, all at once. Martin, will you go after him, please? Douglas, sit down, shut up and fix my damn ship before it's you who needs fixing."
To their credit, Carolyn thinks grimly, they obey. After a few minutes Martin brings Arthur back up to the bridge, and whatever they're talking about seems to have cheered Arthur a little.
A few minutes after that, Douglas looks up and says, "Fortunately…"
"Douglas, don't…"
"…we have warp core initialisation." Douglas is smiling, and then comes the rising hum, the cascade of lights spreading outwards from the console he's sitting under, then full lighting on the bridge as its systems come online.
"Well done, that man," Carolyn says. "Right! Arthur, make that tea! Martin, file a flight plan with the nearest relay station! Douglas - "
Douglas stands up and takes a bow. Martin groans. Arthur is grinning as he leaves the bridge.
*
The key to it, Martin decides, is that they're still flying.
"Right," Douglas says, throwing down his soldering iron. "I'm done for the night. See you in the morning."
He disappears with alacrity, humming "Nessun Dorma", and Carolyn and Martin glance at each other. "Are you all right to…" she begins, and Martin nods. He snatched a nap in the afternoon, three or four hours, and although the ship needs constant attention now, it purrs happily at warp two – he can doze and keep on eye on things.
"I'll stay with you," Carolyn decides, and goes to replicate them both some tea.
There's an instinct pilots get for when a ship is completely dead. Even Martin, whose claim to identify as a pilot is somewhat questionable - he took two attempts to get a basic sublight qualification, and a further four before he could take a ship into warp - understands the prickle at the back of the neck, the way you suddenly know. The last couple of nights they haven't been getting much sleep, napping in turns while they keep their eyes peeled for asteroids, and Martin never has to be shaken too hard when it's his turn: he jerks into wakefulness, gasping, and immediately places a hand on the smooth skin of the ship, the muscles of his hands tensing until he feels that low, almost subsonic hum.
Carolyn catches him at it as she returns with the tea, a half-smile edging onto her lips.
Martin jerks back as she appears, still feeling silly about it all, but she comes straight to him without his saying a word and places her hand next to his. From her expression, Martin realises she is doing just what he was doing: making sure for herself that they are still flying. Some people can ignore the jump into subspace; other people feel it as a mild twinge, an irrelevance. Martin has always felt it as a quickening deep within him, a wildness, a peculiar and unique flavour of freedom. It's why he hasn't ever been able to do anything other than fly.
"Well," Carolyn says briskly, a few moments later as she sets off down the corridor. Martin scurries to keep up with her. She's going in the direction of the mess. "Shall we have a late-night snack?"
"Carolyn, the asteroid field…"
"The ship is not so decrepit you can't route computer power to a different terminal, Martin. We can even eat on top of it if you like."
Martin smiles slightly when she does just that. Beneath her mug and plate of toast the table stops pretending to be made of mahogany and becomes a touchscreen field of stars, with bright points tracking each asteroid. Martin checks twice: all is as it should be.
"Right." Carolyn looks up at him. "Martin, you have been dying to ask me for months. Why don't you just go ahead and get it over with?"
Martin blinks, confused for a moment. Then he's aware of the hum of the ship in his bones, and asks: "Why did you leave Starfleet?"
"Ah, Martin, I thought you'd never ask." She smiles at him, a little wryly, and takes a bite of her toast.
Martin smiles a little in return and looks up towards the observation window, the blur of stars in warp. They're going barely ten times the speed of light, so the effect is different from what he's used to, fuzzy nebula-like clouds rather than the usual straight lines speeding past.
"You mustn't think I didn't enjoy it," Carolyn says. "I spent some of the best years of my life in Starfleet. I loved being a cadet. I loved my first few years out into space. I was navigator on the T'Khut, did you ever see that ship? Mostly Vulcan crew, just a few Humans, Betazoids and Andorians. I was the ship's navigator, back when you needed a mind and not a computer to do that job." She pauses, thoughtfully. "You still do, really. A ship needs to know it's loved."
This is such an uncharacteristic thing for her to say that Martin sits quietly and says nothing at all.
Carolyn sighs, deeply. "And then I left."
"Why?" Martin asks, before he can stop himself. "If you loved it, and…" And you were in Starfleet, he thinks but doesn't say. Because you were a success; because you learned to fly so it came as naturally as breathing.
Carolyn chuckles. "T'Khut is a science vessel, not a battleship, not first-contact. There are families on board, children, schools. I married; I had Arthur and he went to the ship's kindergarten. It was a good environment for him – a half-Betazoid half-human child often has trouble managing the empathy, but he learned. And he can still count to ten in Vulcan. "
"Carolyn, why…"
"Gordon." Carolyn shrugs. "He was a well-respected man in Starfleet. Still is. Ship's tactical officer. There's no rule against cruelty, after all, as long as long as it's not of a certain type and you don't aim it at uncontacted species."
"Carolyn…"
"And Arthur has no choice about living honestly," Carolyn says, steady, blocking him out. "How can he when he broadcasts every emotion he has, the poor child. But I do, and I wanted to show him I could make that choice. That's all."
Martin asks, "Why are you telling me this?"
Carolyn shrugs again, her eyes steady on him. "No reason."
*
Martin is in control as Gertie begins the long, slow fall into the Sol system. He's read about the system gravity well, the way the force begins to exert itself long before the Sun looks bigger than any other star.
"Can’t be having that," Douglas says when Martin tells him this. "Proper Starfleet officer wouldn't use species-specific technology, now would they? It's not everyone's Sun."
"No," Martin says, slowly, and reaches out to take a note, automatically. He understands that more than just intellectually, he thinks: the feeling of great forces pulling him forward, unseen, inexplicable.
"Oh, Martin, you're not seriously considering taking the exams again," Douglas says, and that's every siren on board begins to wail.
“Shit,” Martin says, clipped. “Shit, we’re coming in too fast!” The red-alert bulbs on either side of the viewscreen begin to flash, then cut out. The sirens bawl louder. The turbolift opens behind them and Arthur runs in. “Chaps, what’s…”
“Cut all engine power and reverse forward thrusters,” Douglas says authoritatively, and Martin does it, feeling the ship buck and twist under him as his hands move over the control panels. The thrusters fire, then flare out. All at once everything goes quiet. The engines are idle, the last of the ship’s conventional fuel venting into space.
“Wow,” Arthur says. “That was a bit hairy, wasn’t it!”
“It’s not over yet,” Martin says, feeling very calm. “Arthur, fetch Carolyn. Douglas, can you bring up magnification, please.”
Arthur disappears. Martin looks up at the screen once Douglas has made the adjustment, stares dispassionately at the disc of the Earth. As he watches, continents and oceans begin to resolve into recognisable forms. “We’re going far too fast,” he says, quietly. "The accelerative damage is done."
Douglas nods. “We’re past the point of no return. We can’t go to warp without making the sun go nova.”
“Great,” Martin says. “Impulse power is shot. What about thrusters? Can we get them going again?”
“Possibly.” Douglas brings up some data, then dismisses it again. “I’d say yes. But what help will that be? I tried to use them just now and they barely slowed us down. What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Martin passes a hand through his hair. “I have no idea. Last bit of debris hit the shields and got through to an impulse engine? I don’t know. It just – blew out of control.”
“Gentlemen!” Carolyn appears in a hurry, and Martin gets flashes of exasperation, of what on earth has happened now. “What…”
“Something blew in the impulse engine control,” he tells her, “and we can’t go to warp within a system. We won’t be able to slow down enough for stable orbit.”
“Thrusters?” she demands. “We could try and miss all planetary bodies, emerge through the other side of the system and then go to warp.”
“A go-around?” Douglas asks. “We tried already. The thrusters won’t do it.”
Martin hits the communications panel. “Earth space control, this is Margaretha Gertruida Zelle. Earth space control, mayday, mayday.”
“Zelle, come in.”
“We have no effective control and” – Martin falters only for a moment – “we are on intercept course."
“Zelle, extrapolating now. Unless your course is corrected” – and the controller’s voice does falter. "Scrambling now."
There’s a burst of unfamiliar static. Martin says, without looking at Douglas: “They’re scrambling someone from Starfleet to haul us out of here with a tractor beam. It won’t work. A ship would have to be closer than the safe distance to get here in time.”
“They can beam us out,” Douglas says.
“But not the people we hit.” Carolyn has her arm around Arthur’s shoulders. He’s saying nothing, eyes wide and fixed on the viewscreen, as the details of Earth become more and more vivid. It fills half the screen now and it's growing all the time; turbulence is starting along the outer flaps and panels of the ship, buffeting them like a rock in a slipstream. They jerk up, then down, so Carolyn stumbles and the two pilots lift up and drop down in their seats. For the first time Martin imagines not flying, but falling.
“Carolyn,” he says. “I was reading Gertie’s operation manual.”
Douglas says, “Martin, this is no time for…”
“Shut up, Douglas,” Carolyn snaps. “Martin…”
“You can land a Traveller-class ship. I mean… land it. I mean, I could try and land it.”
“Land it,” Douglas repeats. “Land it, on the surface of a…”
“Martin,” Carolyn says, very quietly, “I saw it done once. Years ago. Earth control, this is Margaretha Gertruida Zelle.” She gives the name perfect enunciation, Martin notices. “We are coming into land. Repeat, we are coming in to land. Report safe touchdown environments please.”
There’s a squawk on the other end as though the controller is too outraged to talk, and Martin panics for just a moment. And then there’s a sonorous chime from the computer, data scrolling across screens, showing landscapes, climatology, population centres, the terminator crossing the planet’s surface. The controller has run the basic programme already, highlighting in red anywhere large, flat, in daylight and uninhabited.
“Well,” Carolyn says, grimly, “Scottsdale, Arizona, please welcome Gertie and her motley crew.”
And then they hit atmosphere.
*
Afterwards Martin will understand how it was done. At the time it’s nothing but heat and pressure, with their flightpath coalescing in his mind’s eye like a diamond. Gertie was designed for the great sweeping parabolas of space: this close to earth she becomes like any flying machine, veering through pitch, roll and yaw as he pulls her back, forward, using the friction of the atmosphere to compensate for the thrusters’ power loss. The light and air inside the ship is twisting from heat haze, her hull is glowing yellow and red and white-hot in the burn of re-entry. Rivets shriek and sirens blare – and when Carolyn saw this done it was as a controlled exercise on a planet entirely covered in water. Water is as hard as earth, to land on.
The viewscreen is desert, then sky, then desert, then tiny saguaro cactuses, then sky, then far off-settlements, then the horizon, then larger cactuses, then the horizon.
“Water is as hard as land,” Martin murmurs, and with a final shriek, they hit the ground.
“Oh my God,” Arthur says, which is the first time Martin can ever remember him saying that, and consoles flash and sparks flare and Douglas says, calm as a summer’s day: “Touchdown.”
“Oh,” Martin says, and it all goes quiet.
They’ve come to a halt. Looking at the display in front of him, Martin notes dispassionately that the left nacelle has been almost smashed into smithereens, that nearly all basic systems are in need of repair and – he changes the direction of view – they’ve left a trail of destruction for at least half a mile behind them. They have no fuel left to start a fire, but great swathes of vegetation have been flattened, there are deep grooving tracks cut into the ground and some of the debris is steaming gently. He lets out a hysterical giggle that becomes a proper laugh as Douglas catches his eye.
“Well done, Martin,” Douglas says, sincerely. “I suppose – that is all you in there?”
Martin wonders how he knew. Turning to look at Carolyn, he feels the last traces of her disappear from his mind, as though she were trailing a fragrance as she left a room. And yet Martin knows that she was only there for him to see that water world with its descending ship; this ship, he landed himself. Carolyn chuckles as he looks at her. “I’ve a navigator, I never landed the damn things,” she says.
When Arthur goes to make the tea, he puts whisky in all the cups. Douglas gives his to Martin.
*
Of course they end up back in Fitton in the end, the ship rolled out like a gigantic two-dimensional diagram of herself on the open hangar space beside the tiny spaceport. Gertie was squashed into a cargo bay for the trip over, taking with her half the Sonora Desert, many dead cacti and all of Carolyn's public liability no-claims discount, but the crew, even Martin, opted to beam home without a backward glance. They're in a tiny little pub, vaguely watching a local friendly football match being beamed in small-scale holography onto the far wall.
“So,” Douglas says. “Still going to take the Academy exams again, are you?”
“Why do you ask?” Martin says, nursing his drink.
“Well, it’ll take time.” Douglas is thoughtful. “And we’re going to be busy soon, all these repairs on Gertie to get done. And there might be the chance to upgrade some of her systems, you won’t want to miss that.”
“No,” Martin says slowly. “No, I suppose I won’t.”
“You landed well, that last flight.”
Douglas is studiedly not looking at him; Martin smiles, and takes another sip of his drink. “Thank you.”
"Yeah." Douglas deliberately eats a peanut and still doesn't look up.
"I thought," Martin says, and stops. "I felt – calm. Like, like I might know what I was doing. Like if I could just stay calm, I could… anyway. I thought, maybe it's my grandmother coming out in me at last? I mean… people have always said, I'm hopeless, and it's not like… well, some people even said that she wasn't really my – oh, you know."
Douglas snorts a little. "Martin, if I remember rightly your grandmother was T'Prennau of Vulcan, the only documented person in history to have broken a stalemate in the Federation Council by telepathically inciting a city riot."
"Yeah." Martin's shoulders slump. "I guess."
"So if you mean, solving a seemingly intractable problem by unconventional means" – Martin is looking up, and starting to smile – "then…"
Douglas trails off, most uncharacteristically, and Martin finds himself grinning.
"Also," Martin says, after a minute or two, "she flew. She was a civilian pilot in her younger years. She took me flying in two-man hoppers, when I was tiny. Just little hops over the Bristol Channel. She could fly."
"Which is all that matters?" Douglas asks, without rancour. It's a genuine question.
Martin says, after a while: “Do you know, there were people who were say, ten, eleven years old when the Wright brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk? They would have lived to see the first moon landing. And a very few people born before the first moon landing lived to see the Vulcans come. I just – I want to fly, Douglas. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I want to fly.”
At that point Carolyn comes back from the bar, holding a tray with two screwdrivers, a synthale for Arthur, and tonic water for Douglas. “You want to fly, is that right?” she says, acerbically. “Well, we’re flying to Vulcan and back, for a while. The repairs will take at least a couple of months, and cost us no end in favours done. Get used to bowing and scraping, boys, we’ll have ambassadors to carry. And then…”
“Off we go again!” says Arthur, cheerily. He’s exuding bonhomie in a great circle around him.
Martin grins, suddenly, and stands up. "Douglas, will you come with me, please?"
"All right," Douglas says, and there's a questioning look on his face but he follows Martin out, through the arched doorway of the tiny pub and out into the dark garden outside. The stars are bright in the clear sky, but occluded by the ships taking off from the spaceport and holding geostationary orbit above.
"Martin, what is it?" Douglas asks, but Martin waves him silent, impatiently, clenching his teeth and breathing deeply.
"There," he says after a moment. "Sorry. You know, when Arthur – well. Sometimes you're not sure what it is you're actually feeling."
Douglas nods. "And how are you feeling, Captain Crieff?"
"Happy," Martin says, eyes on the stars. He breathes out. "Yeah. Happy."
Douglas nods. There is the tiniest of smiles floating about his lips.
When they walk back into the bar, Carolyn looks at him enquiringly. Martin thinks about the stars, about the care, time and attention it will take to put Gertie back together piece by painstaking piece, and gently, gently, lets her in.
She says nothing, and she's thinking about what it feels like to guide a ship into space through atmosphere, on a curved flight-plan smooth and easy as a kiss, to do it while in someone else's hands.
"Yeah," Martin says, and sits down, taking his place among them.
end.
tau_sigma. Happy birthday, darling!(Apparently there's nothing I can't write a Star Trek AU of? This is Cabin Pressure in a Star Trek AU. Yeah.)
Fic:: A Short History of Aviation
by Raven
5000w, Cabin Pressure, Star Trek AU, gen. All Martin ever wants to do is fly. Four failed sublight qualification attempts, a murderous asteroid field and the world's cheeriest empath make this a little more difficult than he'd like.
"Shields up, boys," Carolyn announces, walking onto the tiny bridge with her hands on her hips.
"Inner or outer?" Martin asks, and quails at her glare. "Douglas, can you…"
"Shields going up, Captain." Douglas couldn't be leaning further back into his chair if he tried. "Anything else you need doing? Inertial dampening? Phasers arming, gosh there must be some dratted Klingons about here somewhere, or maybe you'd like a foot rub?"
"That will do," Carolyn informs them both, crisply, and Martin regrets the earlier cheap shot. Like many Betazoids who have lived a long time with humans, she has a very strict ethical code about that sort of thing. "Gentlemen, if you were navigating an asteroid field – why, look at that, what a coincidence, I believe you are. Shields up."
Douglas, true to his word if still nearly recumbent, has done it. The low hum of power beneath their feet becomes a little more strained; technically, Martin assumes, they should fly with some measure of shield protection all the time, but mostly they manage with enough to keep the hull intact, and avoid quite blowing out the ancient engines.
"Anything else?" Douglas asks, still somewhat waspish, and Martin sighs. The passengers have been unloaded, the cargo discharged. This is, he decides, wearily, going to be a long trip home.
Carolyn and Douglas are former Starfleet. Martin is not.
"Don't know why it bothers you so much," Douglas says, stretching out in feline fashion, half-getting up out of his chair and sitting in it again. "Never did me much good even before they fired me. Sorry, before they dishonourably discharged me, I know you like me to get the terminology right on these things."
"It doesn't bother me," Martin insists, getting out of his chair. He's been sitting in it, ramrod-straight, for hours now, and his muscles are beginning to creak.
"Yeah?" Douglas looks at him appraisingly. "You're standing there shifting from one foot to the other rather than going to bed, which you're perfectly entitled to do at this time of night. You don't approve of the idea of leaving the ship on autopilot control overnight, and it's true you're in charge here, you could countermand that. But Carolyn and I have had Academy training, so you're worried we know something we don't. But the autopilot still bothers you, so you're standing there on one foot all a-dither."
Douglas is Earth-human, born and raised on Earth, and he doesn't have a telepathic bone in his body. He's just that good.
"Douglas, you…" Martin begins, but Douglas waves him silent.
"Turns out I wasn't that sleepy yet, anyway," he says, smoothly. "Maybe I'll just sit here with my novel for an hour, keep an eye on things, hmm? Off you go."
"Thank you," Martin begins, but he gets waved quiet again.
"Goodnight, Captain."
"Goodnight, Douglas," Martin says, smiling a little.
He turns to leave, waits for the creaking bridge doors to register his presence, and sets off for his quarters still with that small smile on his lips. Gertie – a civilian-made, Lockheed McDonnell Traveller-class ship, Margaretha Gertruida Zelle – is silent around him. Carolyn and Arthur went to their respective beds hours ago, and the only sound is the steady hum of the ship itself. Feeling silly but not quite able to stop himself, Martin places a hand on the wall to better feel it. Gertie is barely bigger than a shuttlecraft, with only enough room for cramped quarters for the four of them surrounding the original cargo bays, now converted for passenger use. She's falling apart in small steps, now, after years of the gamma-ray ravages of space, but she still has traces of her old beauty; she was designed in the style of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, and although she has more bathrooms and less blood-red lighting than her precursors, she has their clean, functional lines, and more power than most people expect, given her size. "Goodnight," Martin murmurs, feeling sillier by the moment, and retires to bed.
Hours later something rocks the ship like a tidal wave hitting a rowboat. Sirens begin wailing as Martin flies out of the bed in the direction of the bridge. He nearly runs into Arthur, who shouts, "This is a bit not good, Skip, isn't it?" as he falls into step beside Martin, and then they both nearly run into Douglas at the entrance to the bridge.
"Report!" Martin shouts, his hands already moving over his console, and he's getting the gist of it even as Douglas stands up, moves away from his panels.
"Impact on aft shields," he says crisply. "Part of an asteroid, no doubt. All systems down except basic life support and thrusters. It's going to take a hell of a lot of repairs before we're moving faster than a snail on thorazine. Oh, Carolyn-"
"I heard," Carolyn says, tiredly, framed by the doorway. Martin's maternal grandmother was a touch-telepath, and Carolyn is a powerful broadcast telepath; taken together, it's enough for him to sometimes, rarely, hear her thoughts. This time it takes him a moment to understand that it's her thought: it's an inarticulate feeling of weariness, of falling, that's only a slightly different flavour from his own.
"Well," Douglas says, looking at them all one by one, Martin, Arthur and Carolyn. "What do we do now?"
"Tea, Arthur?"
"Tea," Arthur says. He looks pale but determined. "I went to the galley and made it. It smells nice, doesn't it? I think we need something nice after that. Here you go, Mum… Martin… Douglas."
Carolyn inhales deeply from her cup before she takes a sip. They are in such dire straits, she reflects, that she's sitting unremarkably in Martin's chair. He doesn't seem to have noticed, let alone complained.
"Thank you, Arthur," Carolyn says, and takes another sip. The change in mood on and of the ship has him strained and upset, so she doesn't say anything, letting him be for the moment. She's aware of Martin and Douglas, the feel of each of their distinctive presences, but through long practice, not aware of their thoughts. She warms her hands on her cup, takes careful sips until the grounds appear on the base, and then looks up and says, "Well?"
"Well." Douglas comes to sit beside her. "Much as I hate to let these words even pass my lips, Carolyn, it appears that Martin was right."
"And how is that?"
"The autopilot," Douglas says. "It's an old model and it wasn't designed to handle an asteroid field with this fine a density. In brief, we were headed for a rock and we hit it before the evasive manoeuvres kicked in.
"That's not quite right," comes Martin's voice from under the console he's tinkering with. "The long-range sensors are shot. Even under manual control we might not have reacted in time."
"Options?" Carolyn asks.
Douglas shrugs. "None of us is an engineer. But we might – might! – be able to do enough repairs to get us to warp 2 or 3, enough to maybe limp back to Earth or Utopia Planitia or something. If we only manage to get back impulse, well…"
Carolyn sighs. They can't get to Earth on impulse power; they'll have to ask for a tow, and in this region of space, the only people able to do that will be Starfleet. Carolyn pictures Gertie squeezed into a bay meant for a shuttlecraft, and herself having to be grateful, and the ambassadors and other dignitaries they'll no doubt have to ferry around as a function of that gratitude, and shudders.
"Let's stick to the first option you mentioned if at all possible, please?" she says. "And you can all get on it immediately, first thing in the morning."
They all nod, and one by one, shuffle out, Arthur last.
"Will it be all right, Mum?" he asks. "Will Douglas think of something terribly clever?"
Not for the first time, Carolyn curses the physical impossibility of lying to him. "I don't know," she answers, and watches him nod slowly, and go out.
They're on the second day of the repairs when Douglas looks up and says, pointedly: "Fortunately, we still have environmental control and hydroponics."
Carolyn, catching on, says: "Unfortunately, Arthur's plants are still alive."
"Fortunately," Martin says, "we no longer have anything in the galley to cook them with."
"Unfortunately," says Douglas, "they've been known to spontaneously combust."
"Fortunately, we could do with the extra power." Carolyn's laughing. Looking up at the smile blossom on Arthur's face, she says, "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses."
Arthur grins and says enthusiastically, "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses and a, er, and a bucket and spade."
"That's two things," Douglas says, and Carolyn glares at him.
"You, work," she snaps. "And speaking of which, would you to care to apprise me on how that's going or shall we drift quietly in space a little more?"
"It's going very well, thank you." Douglas is sitting cross-legged under a console, looking very dignified as he reaches out to the panel above him with a tiny cauterising tool. Carolyn trained in communications and navigation, avoiding circuits, wires and relays wherever possible; she's no idea what he's doing. Martin is leafing through the Traveller-class flight operations manual on his padd, and considering recent events Carolyn is content to leave him and his attention to detail be.
"Speaking of things going well" – Douglas's drawl is pure treacle - "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, and a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle."
"Douglas!" Carolyn snaps.
"They do exist, Mum!" Arthur says, happily. "I've seen them!"
"That is not the point." Carolyn is pleased inwardly; if Arthur's mood is lifting, that means they're all on the way up. "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle - thank you, Douglas - and a cocktail shaker."
Martin looks up from his operations manual and says, smoothly: "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle, a cocktail shaker and a pair of green wellies."
"This is quite unfair, I'll have you know," Douglas says. "Luckily I have my immense natural talents to counterbalance the fact I'm playing a word game with a telepath and an empath. And Martin."
"You're avoiding your turn, First Officer Richardson," Carolyn points out. "Unless you can't…"
Douglas takes an ostentatious deep breath. "I went to Risa and I bought a pair of sunglasses, a bucket and spade, a fertility aid in the shape of Surak's left testicle, a cocktail shaker, green wellies, and a banana."
"It's a pair of green wellies."
"Martin, do shut up."
"No, it is," Martin says. "It's a pair of green wellies. You have to get it exactly right, otherwise you lose the game, and it's a pair - I should know, I said it."
"Well, I clearly didn't mean three or forty or seven hundred wellies, did I, Martin? You know something, you are…"
"An anal-retentive, prissy stickler for rules?" Martin snaps back. "Martin loves the rulebook, ha, stupid Martin who thought we shouldn't leave an ancient ship on autopilot overnight in an asteroid field?"
"Martin, if this is your terribly subtle way of building up to an I told you so, complete with little dance of victory, then why don't you just…"
He breaks off at the sound of movement by the door. It's Arthur. "I think I'll just go and make the tea," he says, quickly, his face drawn, and disappears.
"There's nothing in the galley to make it with," Martin says, and Carolyn sighs.
"It's rather difficult for him, being an empath and a fundamentally nice person and sharing a ship with you two, all at once. Martin, will you go after him, please? Douglas, sit down, shut up and fix my damn ship before it's you who needs fixing."
To their credit, Carolyn thinks grimly, they obey. After a few minutes Martin brings Arthur back up to the bridge, and whatever they're talking about seems to have cheered Arthur a little.
A few minutes after that, Douglas looks up and says, "Fortunately…"
"Douglas, don't…"
"…we have warp core initialisation." Douglas is smiling, and then comes the rising hum, the cascade of lights spreading outwards from the console he's sitting under, then full lighting on the bridge as its systems come online.
"Well done, that man," Carolyn says. "Right! Arthur, make that tea! Martin, file a flight plan with the nearest relay station! Douglas - "
Douglas stands up and takes a bow. Martin groans. Arthur is grinning as he leaves the bridge.
The key to it, Martin decides, is that they're still flying.
"Right," Douglas says, throwing down his soldering iron. "I'm done for the night. See you in the morning."
He disappears with alacrity, humming "Nessun Dorma", and Carolyn and Martin glance at each other. "Are you all right to…" she begins, and Martin nods. He snatched a nap in the afternoon, three or four hours, and although the ship needs constant attention now, it purrs happily at warp two – he can doze and keep on eye on things.
"I'll stay with you," Carolyn decides, and goes to replicate them both some tea.
There's an instinct pilots get for when a ship is completely dead. Even Martin, whose claim to identify as a pilot is somewhat questionable - he took two attempts to get a basic sublight qualification, and a further four before he could take a ship into warp - understands the prickle at the back of the neck, the way you suddenly know. The last couple of nights they haven't been getting much sleep, napping in turns while they keep their eyes peeled for asteroids, and Martin never has to be shaken too hard when it's his turn: he jerks into wakefulness, gasping, and immediately places a hand on the smooth skin of the ship, the muscles of his hands tensing until he feels that low, almost subsonic hum.
Carolyn catches him at it as she returns with the tea, a half-smile edging onto her lips.
Martin jerks back as she appears, still feeling silly about it all, but she comes straight to him without his saying a word and places her hand next to his. From her expression, Martin realises she is doing just what he was doing: making sure for herself that they are still flying. Some people can ignore the jump into subspace; other people feel it as a mild twinge, an irrelevance. Martin has always felt it as a quickening deep within him, a wildness, a peculiar and unique flavour of freedom. It's why he hasn't ever been able to do anything other than fly.
"Well," Carolyn says briskly, a few moments later as she sets off down the corridor. Martin scurries to keep up with her. She's going in the direction of the mess. "Shall we have a late-night snack?"
"Carolyn, the asteroid field…"
"The ship is not so decrepit you can't route computer power to a different terminal, Martin. We can even eat on top of it if you like."
Martin smiles slightly when she does just that. Beneath her mug and plate of toast the table stops pretending to be made of mahogany and becomes a touchscreen field of stars, with bright points tracking each asteroid. Martin checks twice: all is as it should be.
"Right." Carolyn looks up at him. "Martin, you have been dying to ask me for months. Why don't you just go ahead and get it over with?"
Martin blinks, confused for a moment. Then he's aware of the hum of the ship in his bones, and asks: "Why did you leave Starfleet?"
"Ah, Martin, I thought you'd never ask." She smiles at him, a little wryly, and takes a bite of her toast.
Martin smiles a little in return and looks up towards the observation window, the blur of stars in warp. They're going barely ten times the speed of light, so the effect is different from what he's used to, fuzzy nebula-like clouds rather than the usual straight lines speeding past.
"You mustn't think I didn't enjoy it," Carolyn says. "I spent some of the best years of my life in Starfleet. I loved being a cadet. I loved my first few years out into space. I was navigator on the T'Khut, did you ever see that ship? Mostly Vulcan crew, just a few Humans, Betazoids and Andorians. I was the ship's navigator, back when you needed a mind and not a computer to do that job." She pauses, thoughtfully. "You still do, really. A ship needs to know it's loved."
This is such an uncharacteristic thing for her to say that Martin sits quietly and says nothing at all.
Carolyn sighs, deeply. "And then I left."
"Why?" Martin asks, before he can stop himself. "If you loved it, and…" And you were in Starfleet, he thinks but doesn't say. Because you were a success; because you learned to fly so it came as naturally as breathing.
Carolyn chuckles. "T'Khut is a science vessel, not a battleship, not first-contact. There are families on board, children, schools. I married; I had Arthur and he went to the ship's kindergarten. It was a good environment for him – a half-Betazoid half-human child often has trouble managing the empathy, but he learned. And he can still count to ten in Vulcan. "
"Carolyn, why…"
"Gordon." Carolyn shrugs. "He was a well-respected man in Starfleet. Still is. Ship's tactical officer. There's no rule against cruelty, after all, as long as long as it's not of a certain type and you don't aim it at uncontacted species."
"Carolyn…"
"And Arthur has no choice about living honestly," Carolyn says, steady, blocking him out. "How can he when he broadcasts every emotion he has, the poor child. But I do, and I wanted to show him I could make that choice. That's all."
Martin asks, "Why are you telling me this?"
Carolyn shrugs again, her eyes steady on him. "No reason."
Martin is in control as Gertie begins the long, slow fall into the Sol system. He's read about the system gravity well, the way the force begins to exert itself long before the Sun looks bigger than any other star.
"Can’t be having that," Douglas says when Martin tells him this. "Proper Starfleet officer wouldn't use species-specific technology, now would they? It's not everyone's Sun."
"No," Martin says, slowly, and reaches out to take a note, automatically. He understands that more than just intellectually, he thinks: the feeling of great forces pulling him forward, unseen, inexplicable.
"Oh, Martin, you're not seriously considering taking the exams again," Douglas says, and that's every siren on board begins to wail.
“Shit,” Martin says, clipped. “Shit, we’re coming in too fast!” The red-alert bulbs on either side of the viewscreen begin to flash, then cut out. The sirens bawl louder. The turbolift opens behind them and Arthur runs in. “Chaps, what’s…”
“Cut all engine power and reverse forward thrusters,” Douglas says authoritatively, and Martin does it, feeling the ship buck and twist under him as his hands move over the control panels. The thrusters fire, then flare out. All at once everything goes quiet. The engines are idle, the last of the ship’s conventional fuel venting into space.
“Wow,” Arthur says. “That was a bit hairy, wasn’t it!”
“It’s not over yet,” Martin says, feeling very calm. “Arthur, fetch Carolyn. Douglas, can you bring up magnification, please.”
Arthur disappears. Martin looks up at the screen once Douglas has made the adjustment, stares dispassionately at the disc of the Earth. As he watches, continents and oceans begin to resolve into recognisable forms. “We’re going far too fast,” he says, quietly. "The accelerative damage is done."
Douglas nods. “We’re past the point of no return. We can’t go to warp without making the sun go nova.”
“Great,” Martin says. “Impulse power is shot. What about thrusters? Can we get them going again?”
“Possibly.” Douglas brings up some data, then dismisses it again. “I’d say yes. But what help will that be? I tried to use them just now and they barely slowed us down. What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Martin passes a hand through his hair. “I have no idea. Last bit of debris hit the shields and got through to an impulse engine? I don’t know. It just – blew out of control.”
“Gentlemen!” Carolyn appears in a hurry, and Martin gets flashes of exasperation, of what on earth has happened now. “What…”
“Something blew in the impulse engine control,” he tells her, “and we can’t go to warp within a system. We won’t be able to slow down enough for stable orbit.”
“Thrusters?” she demands. “We could try and miss all planetary bodies, emerge through the other side of the system and then go to warp.”
“A go-around?” Douglas asks. “We tried already. The thrusters won’t do it.”
Martin hits the communications panel. “Earth space control, this is Margaretha Gertruida Zelle. Earth space control, mayday, mayday.”
“Zelle, come in.”
“We have no effective control and” – Martin falters only for a moment – “we are on intercept course."
“Zelle, extrapolating now. Unless your course is corrected” – and the controller’s voice does falter. "Scrambling now."
There’s a burst of unfamiliar static. Martin says, without looking at Douglas: “They’re scrambling someone from Starfleet to haul us out of here with a tractor beam. It won’t work. A ship would have to be closer than the safe distance to get here in time.”
“They can beam us out,” Douglas says.
“But not the people we hit.” Carolyn has her arm around Arthur’s shoulders. He’s saying nothing, eyes wide and fixed on the viewscreen, as the details of Earth become more and more vivid. It fills half the screen now and it's growing all the time; turbulence is starting along the outer flaps and panels of the ship, buffeting them like a rock in a slipstream. They jerk up, then down, so Carolyn stumbles and the two pilots lift up and drop down in their seats. For the first time Martin imagines not flying, but falling.
“Carolyn,” he says. “I was reading Gertie’s operation manual.”
Douglas says, “Martin, this is no time for…”
“Shut up, Douglas,” Carolyn snaps. “Martin…”
“You can land a Traveller-class ship. I mean… land it. I mean, I could try and land it.”
“Land it,” Douglas repeats. “Land it, on the surface of a…”
“Martin,” Carolyn says, very quietly, “I saw it done once. Years ago. Earth control, this is Margaretha Gertruida Zelle.” She gives the name perfect enunciation, Martin notices. “We are coming into land. Repeat, we are coming in to land. Report safe touchdown environments please.”
There’s a squawk on the other end as though the controller is too outraged to talk, and Martin panics for just a moment. And then there’s a sonorous chime from the computer, data scrolling across screens, showing landscapes, climatology, population centres, the terminator crossing the planet’s surface. The controller has run the basic programme already, highlighting in red anywhere large, flat, in daylight and uninhabited.
“Well,” Carolyn says, grimly, “Scottsdale, Arizona, please welcome Gertie and her motley crew.”
And then they hit atmosphere.
Afterwards Martin will understand how it was done. At the time it’s nothing but heat and pressure, with their flightpath coalescing in his mind’s eye like a diamond. Gertie was designed for the great sweeping parabolas of space: this close to earth she becomes like any flying machine, veering through pitch, roll and yaw as he pulls her back, forward, using the friction of the atmosphere to compensate for the thrusters’ power loss. The light and air inside the ship is twisting from heat haze, her hull is glowing yellow and red and white-hot in the burn of re-entry. Rivets shriek and sirens blare – and when Carolyn saw this done it was as a controlled exercise on a planet entirely covered in water. Water is as hard as earth, to land on.
The viewscreen is desert, then sky, then desert, then tiny saguaro cactuses, then sky, then far off-settlements, then the horizon, then larger cactuses, then the horizon.
“Water is as hard as land,” Martin murmurs, and with a final shriek, they hit the ground.
“Oh my God,” Arthur says, which is the first time Martin can ever remember him saying that, and consoles flash and sparks flare and Douglas says, calm as a summer’s day: “Touchdown.”
“Oh,” Martin says, and it all goes quiet.
They’ve come to a halt. Looking at the display in front of him, Martin notes dispassionately that the left nacelle has been almost smashed into smithereens, that nearly all basic systems are in need of repair and – he changes the direction of view – they’ve left a trail of destruction for at least half a mile behind them. They have no fuel left to start a fire, but great swathes of vegetation have been flattened, there are deep grooving tracks cut into the ground and some of the debris is steaming gently. He lets out a hysterical giggle that becomes a proper laugh as Douglas catches his eye.
“Well done, Martin,” Douglas says, sincerely. “I suppose – that is all you in there?”
Martin wonders how he knew. Turning to look at Carolyn, he feels the last traces of her disappear from his mind, as though she were trailing a fragrance as she left a room. And yet Martin knows that she was only there for him to see that water world with its descending ship; this ship, he landed himself. Carolyn chuckles as he looks at her. “I’ve a navigator, I never landed the damn things,” she says.
When Arthur goes to make the tea, he puts whisky in all the cups. Douglas gives his to Martin.
Of course they end up back in Fitton in the end, the ship rolled out like a gigantic two-dimensional diagram of herself on the open hangar space beside the tiny spaceport. Gertie was squashed into a cargo bay for the trip over, taking with her half the Sonora Desert, many dead cacti and all of Carolyn's public liability no-claims discount, but the crew, even Martin, opted to beam home without a backward glance. They're in a tiny little pub, vaguely watching a local friendly football match being beamed in small-scale holography onto the far wall.
“So,” Douglas says. “Still going to take the Academy exams again, are you?”
“Why do you ask?” Martin says, nursing his drink.
“Well, it’ll take time.” Douglas is thoughtful. “And we’re going to be busy soon, all these repairs on Gertie to get done. And there might be the chance to upgrade some of her systems, you won’t want to miss that.”
“No,” Martin says slowly. “No, I suppose I won’t.”
“You landed well, that last flight.”
Douglas is studiedly not looking at him; Martin smiles, and takes another sip of his drink. “Thank you.”
"Yeah." Douglas deliberately eats a peanut and still doesn't look up.
"I thought," Martin says, and stops. "I felt – calm. Like, like I might know what I was doing. Like if I could just stay calm, I could… anyway. I thought, maybe it's my grandmother coming out in me at last? I mean… people have always said, I'm hopeless, and it's not like… well, some people even said that she wasn't really my – oh, you know."
Douglas snorts a little. "Martin, if I remember rightly your grandmother was T'Prennau of Vulcan, the only documented person in history to have broken a stalemate in the Federation Council by telepathically inciting a city riot."
"Yeah." Martin's shoulders slump. "I guess."
"So if you mean, solving a seemingly intractable problem by unconventional means" – Martin is looking up, and starting to smile – "then…"
Douglas trails off, most uncharacteristically, and Martin finds himself grinning.
"Also," Martin says, after a minute or two, "she flew. She was a civilian pilot in her younger years. She took me flying in two-man hoppers, when I was tiny. Just little hops over the Bristol Channel. She could fly."
"Which is all that matters?" Douglas asks, without rancour. It's a genuine question.
Martin says, after a while: “Do you know, there were people who were say, ten, eleven years old when the Wright brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk? They would have lived to see the first moon landing. And a very few people born before the first moon landing lived to see the Vulcans come. I just – I want to fly, Douglas. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I want to fly.”
At that point Carolyn comes back from the bar, holding a tray with two screwdrivers, a synthale for Arthur, and tonic water for Douglas. “You want to fly, is that right?” she says, acerbically. “Well, we’re flying to Vulcan and back, for a while. The repairs will take at least a couple of months, and cost us no end in favours done. Get used to bowing and scraping, boys, we’ll have ambassadors to carry. And then…”
“Off we go again!” says Arthur, cheerily. He’s exuding bonhomie in a great circle around him.
Martin grins, suddenly, and stands up. "Douglas, will you come with me, please?"
"All right," Douglas says, and there's a questioning look on his face but he follows Martin out, through the arched doorway of the tiny pub and out into the dark garden outside. The stars are bright in the clear sky, but occluded by the ships taking off from the spaceport and holding geostationary orbit above.
"Martin, what is it?" Douglas asks, but Martin waves him silent, impatiently, clenching his teeth and breathing deeply.
"There," he says after a moment. "Sorry. You know, when Arthur – well. Sometimes you're not sure what it is you're actually feeling."
Douglas nods. "And how are you feeling, Captain Crieff?"
"Happy," Martin says, eyes on the stars. He breathes out. "Yeah. Happy."
Douglas nods. There is the tiniest of smiles floating about his lips.
When they walk back into the bar, Carolyn looks at him enquiringly. Martin thinks about the stars, about the care, time and attention it will take to put Gertie back together piece by painstaking piece, and gently, gently, lets her in.
She says nothing, and she's thinking about what it feels like to guide a ship into space through atmosphere, on a curved flight-plan smooth and easy as a kiss, to do it while in someone else's hands.
"Yeah," Martin says, and sits down, taking his place among them.
end.