Chapter Text
The smell of the salty sea air.
A song, the words scandalous and exciting. A scathing voice, grumbling that women shouldn’t be on ships, that it’s bad luck to even think of pirates while sailing.
Her father, confused and kind. A handsome lieutenant, his hand on her shoulder.
The smell of fire, the destroyed, half-sinking ship.
A girl in the water.
“What’s your name?”
“T’Pring.”
A coin on a pendant, an alien symbol stamped into the salty-wet gold---
Nyota Uhura wakes up with a gasp, rolling over in bed and rubbing at her eyes, reaching for the drawers beside her bed. She opens the top drawer and pulls back the false bottom, unearthing the golden medallion and inspecting it by the light of the single candle by her bed. Nyota has never seen anything like it, and she turns it over in her hand just as her father starts pounding on the door.
“Just a minute!” she calls, and she gets out of bed, nearly tripping on her duvet, and pulling the medallion over her head, shoving it under her nightdress, and shouldering on her dressing gown. “Come in!”
Her father pushes open her bedroom door, letting in a flurry of maids. They scurry to her curtains, pulling them open to release the blinding morning sun.
“Still abed at this hour?” Nyota’s father asks, laughing at her a little. She grins guiltily, thinking of the dream. “It’s a beautiful day--I’ve brought you a gift.”
“For what occasion?” Nyota asks, walking over to him and the long box that almost certainly holds a dress inside. He lifts off the top of the box and she gasps, pulling out the beautiful dress. “Oh, Father!”
“Does a father need an occasion to dote upon his daughter?” he asks, preening as she coos over the dress. Her maids usher her behind the changing partition and begin helping her into it. “Does it fit?”
“I’m not sure,” Nyota admits, inhaling sharply as her maids begin lacing something up around her toso. It’s a corset, Nyota is sure. “This is more of a contraption than a dress.”
“I’m told it’s the latest fashion in London.”
“Women in London must’ve learnt not to breathe,” Nyota says, gasping, as they finish lacing it up and begin actually putting on the dress.
“Well,” her father says after an awkward moment. “I had hoped you would wear the dress to the promotion today.”
“I’m already wearing it, I might as well,” Nyota says, as the pair of maids finish dressing her.
“He is fond of you, you know,” her father says. Nyota resolutely ignores him.
“Sir, there’s a messenger here for you,” the familiar voice of their butler says, and when Nyota is done getting dressed and having her curls set properly in their right place, she rushes out of her room to see who it is.
From the landing over the steps that lead into the foyer, Nyota can see her father talking to T’Pring, who is wearing a simple dress with her arms tucked neatly behind her back. Nyota’s father is holding up a sword to the light--T’Pring is the favorite messenger of the blacksmith.
“T’Pring!” Nyota exclaims eagerly, and the woman looks up, startled. “It’s so good to see you.” Is it her imagination, or does T’Pring flush? Nyota hikes up her dress and makes her way down the stairs. “I dreamt about you last night, you know.”
“As we have not seen each other today, I would not know that,” T’Pring says.
“It was about the day we met--do you remember?” Nyota asks, and T’Pring inclines her head.
“Indeed,” she says.
“Nyota, I would be inclined to let you and your friend catch up, but we really must be getting ready for the ceremony,” Nyota’s father says, and she nods at him, disappointment curdling in her gut. T’Pring is only a messenger. She wouldn’t be invited to the ceremony.
Nyota smiles apologetically at T’Pring.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“It is of no consequence,” T’Pring says. “I am sure we will see each other shortly, Miss Uhura.”
“How many times must I ask you to call me Nyota?” Nyota asks, and T’Pring says, “At least once more, Miss Uhura.”
Nyota grins at her, and her father ushers her out the door and towards their awaiting carriage. Nyota waves over her shoulder and watches T’Pring watch them go.
In the carriage, Nyota’s father talks about something--the soon-to-be-Commodore, Nyota thinks--while she puts a hand over her breast, feeling the cold metal of the medallion against her skin under her dress.
She’s still not sure why she stole it from around T’Pring’s neck, all those years ago--except that Nyota has always been interested in two things, languages and pirates, and something about the Vulcan pendant had reminded her of both.
Although T’Pring and Nyota were quite close for girls of different stations, T’Pring had never told her why she had been crossing the seas, why she was on Earth, nor anything about her life prior to the shipwreck she’d been rescued in. Nyota knew that her friend had experienced some mental turmoil when they’d first reached Yorktown but that was all. She often wondered what secrets T’Pring held--but it doesn’t matter. No matter how much Nyota may want to know, she will have to marry a man equal to her station and become no closer to T’Pring, who will probably marry the blacksmith.
Nyota hates to think of it, and instead fans herself as they arrive at the fort where the ceremony will be held, and her father leads her to her spot in the front to watch the proceedings.
The ceremony is boring and the day is hot; Stonn is handsome and stoic throughout the promotion and Nyota hates her corset with a passion.
After the ceremony is over, Stonn finds her and guides her up to the top of one of the parapets. She clutches her fan in one hand and his elbow in the other, trying to work up something better than the light breeze her fan provides. She sort of feels like she might faint.
Looking out to sea almost makes her feel better; the waves sparkle along the horizon and the pair of ships in the harbor below are beautiful. Nyota would rather like being so high up if she didn’t feel like she was about to throw up.
“You look lovely, Miss Uhura--Nyota,” Commodore Stonn says. Nyota attempts to smile at him. “I apologize if I am forward but I must speak my mind. Against the Vulcan way, I have gone many years without a mate, and this promotion reminds me that I am in a position to have and care for one, to weather the coming storm. As a commodore, I would like to have a fine woman as my bondmate--and you are a fine woman, Nyota.”
Nyota’s mind is fuzzy and his words float in her head, words she can barely understand, and she manages to say, “I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, I believe that is an appropriate human expression of nerves,” Stonn says, his voice fading as everything goes black.
------
Nyota wakes up gasping, coughing up water. There are three shapes above her--the red coats of the soldiers that crawl the fort--and another man.
This man is kneeling before her, and he has light hair pulled into a low ponytail and a white shirt with a brown vest and pants. He’s soaking wet and she realizes she is too, and he reaches for her breast--her breath catches--and fingers something. She tilts her head to see that he’s holding T’Pring’s medallion.
“Where did you get this?” he asks, and she tries to think of an answer, or perhaps to slap his hand away, but then the point of a sword is aimed at the man’s throat.
“On your feet,” Stonn says, his voice emotionless, and Nyota scrambles to her feet as the man slowly stands up. There are more soldiers swarming around them, and Nyota realizes that she is in her underwear. What happened to her dress?
Her father materializes out of the crowd, draping his coat around her shoulders.
“Are you alright, Nyota?” her father asks.
“I’m fine,” Nyota says. “Commodore Stonn, why do you threaten my rescuer?”
Because the handsome man with the golden hair who is soaking wet before her must have rescued her when she fell off the parapet--as Nyota connects the dots, she realizes why Stonn’s sword is pointed at the man.
Everyone knows that there’s only one type of person who can swim.
Stonn frowns and lowers his sword.
“I believe thanks are in order,” he says, and the man grins, holding out his hand in a clear ignorance of etiquette when faced with a Vulcan, and Stonn grabs his wrist and pulls up a soaking white sleeve.
There is a P branded onto his skin; Nyota gasps.
“It seems you have encountered the East India Trading company, pirate,” Stonn says quietly. Before Nyota can blink, every soldier has a gun aimed at the pirate. Stonn raises the man’s sleeve a bit higher to reveal a tattoo.
As a curious girl inclined to reading and having interest in only a few things, Nyota has consumed much information about pirates, including what tattoos might identify the more notorious ones. The one on this man’s wrist was a spray of stars connected with a thin line; a constellation. Nyota was unpracticed with constellations or anything in the sky, really, but she knew this was the constellation that you sought out when you wanted to find the direction of the planet Vulcan.
Nyota’s mouth dropped; she knew who this pirate was.
“James Kirk,” Stonn says, voice flat. “Isn’t it.”
“ Captain James Kirk, please,” Kirk says, lifting his eyebrows flirtatiously.
“I don’t see your ship, Captain,” Stonn says, looking out at the harbor, where Yorktown’s two ships float without the company of anything grand like a pirate ship.
“I’m in the market,” Kirk says, unhurried and grinning, looking for all the world like there’s no place he’d rather be.
“He said he came to commandeer one,” a soldier says.
“These are his, sir,” another soldier says, thrusting a pile of belongings at Stonn. Stonn takes each item one by one, scorning them.
“No additional shot,” he says to the pirate’s pistol. “A compass that doesn’t point north. And this--I half expected to be made of wood.” Stonn re-sheathes the sword. “You are without a doubt the worst pirate I have ever heard of.”
Kirk leans forward, as if he’s about to impart a great secret.
“Ah,” he says. “But you have heard of me.”
“Arrest him,” Stonn says, gesturing to a soldier bearing handcuffs beside him, and Nyota steps forward.
“Commodore, I must protest,” she says. “Pirate or not, this man saved my life.”
“One good deed does not redeem a man of a lifetime of wickedness,” Stonn says emotionlessly, turning away.
“It’s enough to condemn him, though,” Kirk says as his hands are chained together. Nyota can’t help but think he seems awfully personable for someone who is supposed to be so bad.
“Indeed,” Stonn says, without turning to face him. He gestures for his men to lower their weapons.
“Finally,” Kirk says, and he reaches out, grabbing Nyota and holding her to his chest, the chains around her neck. Nyota realizes, as the guns are drawn again, that she is a human shield, and a well of anger rises in her chest.
“Commodore,” Kirk says. “My effects, if you would.”
Stonn stares at them and Kirk tightens his hold on Nyota. She wonders if logic will dictate she be saved or the pirate captured.
With jerky movements, Stonn gestures and the man holding Kirk’s things hand them over. Kirk nudges her and she takes them.
“If you’d be so kind, Nyota?”
“It’s Miss Uhura,” Nyota growls, enraged, and he smiles and gestures. She drapes his coat over his shoulders and shoves his hat on his head, slams his pistol onto his belt and hopes his sword stabs him through the scabbard somehow as she hooks it to his side.
“You are despicable,” Nyota hisses.
“I saved your life, you saved mine. We’re even,” he says, still smiling jauntily, and she hates that smile. It looks like a smile that could convince anyone of his innocence, like a smile that could get him anywhere.
He backs up, taking her with him.
“Everyone,” he says. “Write the date down! This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain James T. Kirk!”
And he releases Nyota and grabs a rope in the same movement, soaring above their heads and swinging over the harbor, somehow avoiding every shot from the soldiers that storm after him. Nyota watches him release the rope and run off, every soldier after him, leaving her and her father mostly alone on the docks.
She’s not sure if she’s impressed or not by him, although as the anger fades she realizes she’s just come face-to-face with a real pirate, and a fuzzy sort of excitement takes hold in her heart.
“Are you alright?” her father asks.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I hope he’s captured soon.”
She’s not sure if she’s lying or not, and when her father leads her to a carriage so they can head home, she cranes her neck and looks around, unsure if she’s eager or afraid of seeing James Kirk again.
-----
“I heard that the Commodore proposed,” Nyota’s maid, Tonia, says.
“Yes,” Nyota says. She’s in bed, and when Tonia leaves she’ll turn out the lights. Kirk had been captured by the blacksmith some hours before, and Nyota’s unsure why she still feels so uneasy. She fingers the medallion absently.
“I also heard you gave no answer,” Tonia says somewhat knowingly.
“I didn’t,” Nyota murmurs. “I just--”
Something outside booms, rattles the foundation of the house. Nyota sits up straighter, and it booms again.
She hears yells.
“What’s that?” she asks, getting from bed, and Tonia follows her to the window. It is very foggy outside and Nyota cannot see much of anything. There is more commotion from outside, and suddenly Nyota can see fires, in the distance and perhaps coming closer.
“What’s happening?” she asks.
“I don’t know, miss,” Tonia says anxiously. “I fear it’s something terrible.”
The fires are certainly coming closer. Torches, perhaps?
The yells get louder, and there are more booms. Nyota is struck with a certainty that there is an invasion happening, and that somehow it is James Kirk’s fault.
------
An indeterminable amount of time later, when Nyota is running from a pair of pirates in her own home, her conviction that the blame lies on James Kirk’s shoulders is only reinforced.
The first pirate is tall, with dark hair and broad shoulders, and the second one is small, with curly blonde hair.
She doesn’t catch any identifying tattoos nor does she stop to ask their names, just pours her bedwarmer’s coals over one of them and runs.
She reaches for the coat of arms above the fireplace and pulls it down but apparently the swords are attached, somehow, so that’s not very helpful. She can hear the pirates coming, and she looks around frantically, lunging for a closet and pulling the door shut seconds before they come in.
“We know you’re in here,” the first one calls. Nyota watches them slowly creep around the room through the crack between the door and the wall. “Come out and we promise we won’t hurt you.”
“We won’t?” the other one asks. He has some sort of accent--Russian, Nyota thinks. The dark-haired one shoots him a glare and the Russian one shuts up.
“Come on, lovely,” the dark-haired pirate croons. “We’ll find you no matter how you hide...the gold calls to us.” The Russian snickers.
“We can taste it,” he says, and Nyota reaches for the medallion around her neck, touches it with shaky fingers, and the dark-haired pirate turns towards the closet and eases it open with the point of his sword.
“Hello, lovely,” he says, and Nyota says, “Parlay!” before she’s even processed the thought.
“What?” the Russian says.
“Parlay,” Nyota says. “I invoke the right of parlay. According to the pirate code set down by Morgan and Bartholemew, someone can invoke parlay and be taken to the captain.”
“I know the Code,” the dark-haired pirate snarls.
“According to the Code, you can’t do me any harm until the parlay is complete.”
“To hell with the Code,” the Russian says, and the dark-haired pirate stops him from charging forward.
“No, Chekov,” he says. “She wants to be taken to the captain.” A weird gleam enters his eye. “And she’ll go without a fuss.” He tilts his head. “And we must honor the Code, after all.”
------
The ship is large and vast, and Nyota stares up at it with wide eyes, trying to take it all in. It’s too foggy to see very well, but she can see people bustling about on the deck and other people on the docks.
Her captives--Sulu and Chekov, she’s learned in their walk from the governor’s mansion to the harbor--push her along, even though she’d tried to convince them that she would’ve walked of her own accord.
They push her up the gangplank and onto the ship, and a thin, reedy man with a silver eyepatch eyeballs them.
“What’s this?” he asks. “I didn’t think we were taking captives, Sulu.”
“She wants to parlay with Pike, Mister Mitchell,” Sulu says, and Mitchell laughs before retreating into the gloom--to get the captain, perhaps?
Mitchell comes back and with him is a large, imposing man with dark hair with streaks of silver, dressed in a mustard yellow coat and heeled boots. This must be the captain, and Nyota lifts her head and swallows, taking a step forward.
“Captain Pike, I am here to--”
Someone slaps her--when her face is turned Nyota banishes the tears welling in her eyes and turns back, shocked.
“You’ll speak when spoken to!” Mitchell snarls, and Pike grabs the man’s still raised wrist.
“Now, now, Gary, we mustn’t harm those under the protection of parlay,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” Mitchell says, and when Pike releases him he scurries back into the gloom. Pike smiles at Nyota, and it’s not a reassuring smile--nothing like Kirk’s.
“Now, what were you saying, my dear?”
“I have come to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Yorktown,” Nyota says, lifting her chin, her face stinging, and she wonders if there will be a handprint mark on her face tomorrow.
“Well, now, we’re just humble pirates here,” Pike says, spreading his hands. “And that was an awful lot of big words. What do you want, exactly?”
“I want you to leave and never come back,” Nyota says, trying to stay calm. Pike and other pirates around him, including Chekov and Sulu at her back, laugh.
“I am disinclined to acquiesce your request,” Pike says, and Nyota crosses her arms and glares at him, mind churning.
“What does that mean?” Chekov whispers.
“I think it means ‘no’,” Sulu answers, voice equally quiet, but they’re close enough Nyota can hear.
“Fine,” she says, and she marches to the edge of the ship, taking off the medallion and holding it over the side. “I’ll drop it.”
Pike watches her curiously.
“And why should that matter to us?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Nyota says. “But those two said they wanted the gold.” She uses her free hand to gesture at Sulu and Chekov, both of whom go pale.
“Those two have no bearing on my ship and just because they want a bit of shine means nothing of my own desires,” Pike says.
“Fine,” Nyota says, and her hand releases the chain. Every pirate reacts--including Pike--reaching out to stop her, and her hand tightens before the medallion falls. “Gotcha.”
“What’s your name, missy?” Pike asks her, tearing his eyes from the medallion.
“Uhura,” she says, and then she pauses. “T’Pring Uhura. I’m a maid in the governor’s household.”
“I see,” Pike says, pondering. “And how did a maid come across a trinket such as this?”
“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you mean,” Nyota says, even though she did, in fact, steal it.
“No, of course not--a gift from a lover, perhaps?” Pike says, seemingly still pondering, and then he snaps out of it. “Very well--if you hand that over, we’ll leave and never return.”
“Do you swear?” Nyota asks, unsure why she would trust the word of a pirate, and thinking that making him swear doesn’t even mean anything anyway.
“I would not go against the Code!” Pike cries, outraged. “Do you agree?”
“Fine,” Nyota says, and she hands it over just as she realizes--
“Still the guns and stow ‘em! Signal the men, set the flags, and make good to clear port!” Pike cries, and with a dull certainty Nyota realizes she never said anything about going back--and she is sure Pike is clever enough to realize this, and won’t be returning her. “Someone find our Vulcan and bring him to me,” Pike says, and then he turns back to Nyota.
“I suppose you aren’t taking me home?” she says.
“Well, that wasn’t part of our agreement, now, was it?” Pike says. “Chekov, Sulu--bring her to my office. And Miss T’Pring--welcome aboard the Enterprise.”