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They were dead in the water.
“Bridge to Engineering, Mister Scott do you read me?”
“Aye, Captain. I read you but I have nothing to report. I don’t know what happened.”
Kirk looked around his bridge. The crew was desperately pushing at buttons, Sulu was messing with controls and Checkov was muttering under his breath in Russain reaching over Sulu to mess with different controls.
“Someone tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Sulu’s brow furrowed as he looked over his shoulder.
“I wish I could Captain, just as soon as we passed that light anomaly we just...stopped.”
“Uh Captain.”
“What is it Mister Scott?”
“There’s a woman down in engineering.”
Kirk nearly smacked himself with the force he put behind the hand he put over his face.
“Yes Scotty, there are quite a few of them. They work there.”
“No, I mean a different one. A naked one.”
“Scotty, I swear to god if you’re making-”
“Sir, she’s got an interesting tattoo.”
“Mister Scott now is not the time.”
“NCC-1701.”
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Once they had managed to get the naked and unconscious (“Really Scotty? You mentioned she was naked before you mentioned she was unconscious?”) woman to medbay, there were far more questions than there were answers.
The sturdy dark haired woman lay unnervingly still as McCoy ran a tricorder over her. She did, in fact, have NCC-1701 inked across her shoulders. There were many scars littering her body, but all seemed healed and well tended to. Her chest rose and fell steadily, a soft humming escaped her lips every time she exhaled.
“She’s just a woman, Jim. Healthy. Nothing particularly unusual, except that she isn’t on the crew list.” The doctor clicked a few more things on the machine before looking at it again. “And biologically she’s only about 40 minutes old.”
“What do you mean, Bones?”
“I mean that every cell in her body is no more than 40 minutes old.”
Jim could feel a headache coming on.
“Captain, I feel it would be pertinent to remind you that we passed the light anomaly almost precisely 40 minutes ago.” The first officer peered at the read outs that McCoy had handed over to him. “It would seem that this woman is some how connected to the fact that the Enterprise is very much functional, but remains unmoving.”
“Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc, Spock.”
“The other options seem limited, Captain.”
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The woman awoke 20 minutes later. And when she did, so did the Enterprise. Suddenly they were moving forward again, as if the ship had jolted out of a sleep. Jim thought this was more disturbing that the ship just stopping.
“I…” The woman blinked rapidly and looked around in confusion. “No. No this isn’t right is it.”
“Can you tell me your name Darlin’?” Bones had moved to the side of the bed.
“USS Enterprise Constitution Class, Registry Number NCC-1701.” The doctor stared at her, blinking slowly for a long second.
“Of course it is.”
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“I can only suggest that go back to the anomaly to study it.”
“I don’t see why she can’t just stay!”
“Scotty, we can’t keep the personification of the ship on the ship. Please don’t make me say it again, it makes my head hurt more each time I think about it.”
“But Captain-”
“No. Mister Scott.” Jim sighed at the put out look on his Chief Engineer’s face. “Everytime she falls asleep, the ship stops. They’re connected. We hav eno idea how, we have no idea what would happen to the ship if something happened to the woman or what would happen to the woman if something happened to the ship. It’s too crazy, Scotty, even for this crew.”
Scott threw his hands up and stormed out of the ready room. He wandered down to sickbay, peering into the room that housed what could only be explained as the human form of his ship.
She turned her attention from Doctor McCoy to the man in the door way. A grin split her face.
“Hello, Monty.”
And damn if that didn’t make his chest ache a little.
“Stop hovering outside Scotty, it makes me nervous.” McCoy gripped at him. Slowly he made his way into the room. He felt like a fool, wanting to keep The Enterprise here like she was. But it was almost a dream come true, his lady there in front of him.
“I have to go run these test results up to Jim and Spock. Comm me if there are any issues.” Scotty nodded and watched the doctor leave.
“Thank you.”
He jumped and turned back to her.
“Pardon?”
She laughed and grinned at him.
“Thank you. For taking care of me, Monty. You’ve always made sure I’ve been patched up again. You always listen to my little whines and groans to make sure that I’m being taken care of.” She leaned forward and kissed his forehead softly. “You love me like I love you. Thank you.”
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Once they passed the anomaly again the woman disappeared. No matter how many tests were run, no one could explain it. After a few months they stopped trying.
And if Scotty tended to talk to the ship a little more, or caress a panel more often, no one gave it too much thought.