The third in a collaborative series between myself (mostly story, a little art) and 
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I had to take a long moment before telling my wife about my next meeting with Princess Bazelle … I knew the relevant fleet laws about certain things, but not everything … it had been long enough for the stuff I knew about, but … well, it was one of those things in which you hoped your wife, who had agreed to marry into the most inventive family in both the professional and commercial fleets of the 23rd century, would just chalk some things up to me being a Kirk, and willing to do just about anything for a friend in need....
“As you know, V.T., Rufus Dixon and I worked in shipping until he was 19 and I was 18, and then we finally had enough money to buy what we affectionately refer to now as Rustbucket 1 and started Kirk and Dixon Shipping. The 21st century had ambulance chasers; we chased settlers into places the fleet had just opened up who weren't properly prepared and supplied them. It was dangerous and stupid and just the kind of thing you do from age 18 to 23 when you don't really know what else to do.”
“And, it worked,” my wife said, “but it's probably a good thing for both you and the company that you settled down a little at 24.”
Ah, this was a good opening … I got to wrap my arms around her and kiss her and thank her for helping me settle down and thus probably saving my life and business … that would make the rest go down easier … maybe I wouldn't end up divorced and in jail...
“So, we were out doing the things that young men do trying to build a company when not knowing what else to do, and just as we had finished a run, we saw Princess Bazelle, in her near-humanoid form but badly hurt.
"She was limping and struggling across that untamed planet, having realized I was there, and having walked all the way over – 200 miles – from the next city.
“ 'I recognized your spirit, Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-irk,” she said to me as she collapsed on the deck. “I knew if anyone in the galaxy would help me, you would!' ”
The first thing – she was in near-humanoid form, so humanoid medicine kind of worked … a big deep vinegar bath ended up being just the thing … after she recovered some, she told me what had happened … the members of the royal family all had to go and see the galaxy in bipedal form during adolescence, and give up their power to go spectral in order to understand what it was like to live in the body so that, when ruling, they would not make the kind of mistakes they made in childhood.”
“Oh, you mean like the one that had the child princess swatting starships like bugs and not knowing there were people in them?” V.T. said.
“Right, except on a policymaking level,” I said. “Needless to say, their race in spectral form could by accident wipe out whole planets – Her Highness as a child had messed up the precession of the equinoxes of a whole planet by making basketball equivalents of its gases. Her people have to actually learn how to live on planets with other beings, in addition to conducting themselves properly in spectral form.”
“So, Princess Bazelle was out traveling, and, like many stubborn adolescents, ditched her chaperones to go do her own thing, not realizing that she and hers had already attracted a lot of attention from the kind of people that like to steal from unsuspecting travelers.”
“Yep, and this is why we have taught our own children: stay with the group,” V.T. said. “But, we can't go with them everywhere.”
“No, we can't, not forever,” I said, “and, there are always losses. It is a good thing her Highness is not truly a humanoid. She took enough damage to kill ten of us, fighting for the most precious thing in her possession.
“ 'Father told me to keep it safe, and I like a child was thinking the best way to keep it safe was to always keep it with me,' she said, and started crying. “To your type of people it's just something called jade – and it is, but it has life in it – the Life Stone is in it – my coming-of-age gift – and I cannot go home without it!' ”
“She broke down completely, and her damaged skin began flushing in a way that worried me … the vital signs scanner couldn't quite decipher what was going on with her, but it began to flash warnings about what it believed was her heart – the stress level was getting too high. So, I reached out to her by the side of the bath, and she let me hold her as she cried.
“ 'So, we'll just steal it back,' I said after she calmed down a little. 'I know you gave them a good fight, so they can't be in good shape.' ”
A cold chuckle came from the princess.
“ 'Twelve of them have tasted death,” she said, “and another six will not survive. Their ship will never do better than Warp 2, ever again.'
“ 'Well, that's good, because this thing can't even do Warp 6.25 reliably,' I said. “Any idea where they were headed?”
“ 'I took the information off of one of them when the others fled with the Life Stone Plant – it is in my dress pocket.'
“ 'Okay. One more question: where are your chaperones?'
“ 'I have no idea. That was the whole point of getting away from them!' ”
“So, at this point I knew we were on the verge of an entire interstellar incident. Imagine the princess's people, fighting mad over what had happened to the king's daughter, with the kind of powers that make starships into bugs to be swatted.”
“I'd rather not, Mark. As a full fleet admiral, I thank you for preventing that, because I probably would have been tasked to put together a fleet to get swatted.”
“Well, you know me – solving problems for women all over the galaxy!”
She laughed, and that was good because I already knew she was going to hate the solution.
“I went on and rocked the princess to sleep – she was maybe around Marcia's age in our terms, maybe 14, maybe 15, still a lot of little sister there from my perspective. Any of my little sisters will tell you, though: I'm laid back until somebody messes with them.”
“Yes, I did get that big brother protector vibe from you when we met, Mark.”
“So, after the princess went to sleep in her healing bath, I went to talk with Rufus Dixon, master engineer that he was even at age 24. He said what I expected him to say.
“ 'Mark, we weren't in enough of a situation for you to have to add a princess in need?'
“ 'Well, you know, occupational hazard in dealing with a Kirk, man … you know how we pick up the women.'
He sighed and shook his head and then looked at the information about the ship.
“ 'Well, yes, we can overtake them,” he said, “but we're outgunned three to one, and at sublight speed, that ship is twice as mobile. The only flaw of that type of ship is a weakness in its visual computers and scanners … I can hack them.'
“ 'Sounds good,' I said. “ 'We just have to figure out what we want them to see.'
“And then, V.T., it came to me … please don't kill me.”
V.T. in Mrs. V.T. Kirk stands for her work name: Admiral Vlarian Triefield, the highest ranking woman in the fleet.
“What?” she said with a laugh. “We've been married 18 years – what could you possibly do that would shock me?”
So I told her, and then –.
“You what?!?!?!?!?!?”
“Never count a born Kirk out, my dear.”
When I was 23, my famous cousin J.T. became captain of the fleet's flagship, a vessel that needs no introduction, and he, being who he is, started out with a bang. So already, the last thing you wanted to see, if you were a little pirate ship, was my cousin on your heels in the fleet flagship. And after all, I didn't have to lie … I was Captain Kirk by virtue of owing my own shipping company. And so …
“You impersonated the fleet flagship!” my wife the admiral howled.
“But I didn't lie,” I said. “I just didn't tell them my first initials didn't match, so, they were kind of scared when they saw what they thought they saw coming out of Warp 6 on them and I introduced myself as Captain Kirk. I told them they had ten seconds to return all the stolen property in their hold, and they beamed practically everything they had on board to the bridge of Rustbucket 1 in five seconds, forgot they couldn't go to Warp 3 in seven seconds, and had a warp core breach and turned to dust in fifteen seconds!”
“You impersonated the fleet flagship!” my wife said as she found a place to sit down.
“I just found out it was a crime five years ago, and I didn't know how to tell you, and then I had to wait for the statute of limitations to pass at 15 years, and so one thing led to another.”
My wife, the highest ranking science officer in the fleet, started laughing.
“Impersonating a fleet officer has a statute of limitations of 15 years, and a prison term about twice that long,” she said, “but we don't have laws to even cope with what you and Captain Dixon pulled!”
I breathed a sigh of relief I had been holding for eight years.
“I really like not being in prison,” I said, and she just shook her head.
“I predict you and your cousin my fleet colleague will never get there, even though apparently, Kirks are incapable of not pushing the limits and even passing them in ways the rest of us haven't thought about. Questionable methods, Mark – the right reason, and effective! You stopped a theft in progress – several of them, apparently!”
“Oh, we had to get help to even get off the bridge, there was so much stuff they returned – and we collected rewards from everywhere in addition to the reward the princess's family would eventually share with us.”
“For me, though, the reward was seeing how much the princess had healed just in that short period of time –.
– and then seeing the look in her eyes when I returned the Life Stone to her – and then it popped open!
Art by
“ 'Wait a minute – it opened! What does that even mean?'
“ 'It means,' ” said a familiar voice, “ 'that you have learned the last lesson: when your pride has gotten you into trouble, the steps back are to humble yourself, admit that you are wrong, and ask for help of the right person.'
“ 'Daddy!' ”
“The king had materialized in spectral form outside of Rustbucket 1, with all of the princess's chaperones, and he basically was just materializing his voice in the room.”
“ 'I'm so sorry, Daddy!' ”
“There was boo-hooing and confessing on the spectral level to the king and her chaperones for a long time … again, there was still a lot of child in her who meant no harm but was just trying to grow up, but I could see that she recognized that she had not only endangered herself but many others and so was growing.”
“The king was silent a long time, and then addressed himself to me.
“ 'Thank you again, young Captain Kirk – you are coming along quite well yourself – for caring about my daughter.'
“ 'Oh, certainly, Your Majesty.'
“ 'Thank you for also caring about your fellow humans. You were correct in thinking it would have been much less pleasant for this region of the galaxy if I had to retrieve my daughter's Life Stone, for had the plant opened in the presence of unworthy eyes, the cost would have been all their lives. You have seen what my daughter can do while in a weaker state of approximating bipedal form, and she is not nearly grown, so you might imagine what it would be like for your kind to have to deal with me, at full power, in my wrath.
“ 'However, you alone, among people of your kind, have been granted in one day the privilege of seeing the Life Stone and my daughter in her bare bipedal form, and that is as it should be, for you are honorable, young man. I have placed the equivalent of ten basketballs of gold in your hold, so that you may compensate yourself and your men for your trouble.'
“ 'As for you, Bazelle/a, we will have a long talk about your behavior on the way home. You still have a long way to go before you are of age … but your Life Stone has opened temporarily because the prerequisites of making it are now in place, and also to let you know that I forgive you, my daughter. As for discipline, we will determine that in counsel at home, given that you have already suffered a great deal of the error of your way, and have repented.”
“ 'Do we have to go right now? It feels so good in this bath!'
“ 'Do you think that you should further inconvenience your friend, who has a schedule to keep?'
“ 'No, you're right, Daddy – can we take the vinegar?'
“ 'Captain Kirk, may we have the vinegar?'
“ 'Of course, Your Majesty,' ” I said. 'Anything else you need, you let me know.'
“ 'Thank you, Captain … it is a pleasure to meet you again.'
“ 'Thank you so much!' said Her Highness. 'Thank you so, so much!'
“ 'You are both most welcome,' I said, and then he turned the vinegar into a bubble, put his daughter and the Life Stone in it –
Fractal bubble by the author, Deeann D. Mathews
– the bubble went through the bulkhead, and they were gone in the next instant.”
V.T. smiled at me.
“No wonder you just walked up on a full fleet admiral and sailed into the Cnidaria Nebula to keep her safe and out of there the following year,” she said. “You were well prepared, Mark.”
“Yes,” I said. “I helped Princess Bazelle get to where she had to go, but she also helped me get ready to get to you.”
“That's quite a friendship,” she said. “And, you're not going to prison behind it, although I have something else in mind for you.”
She made me tell my cousin J.T. what I had done.
“You what?!?!?!?!?!?”
But he broke out laughing even faster!
“Brilliant, kid! Don't be mad at him, Admiral – I would have imitated you if it were me, with a whole fleet!”
“You what?!?!?!?!?!?”
It was my turn to laugh, and the entire royal family would laugh about it later on!