[3] Audentes Fortuna Iuvat ➳ Star Trek: Beyond (2016) ✔️

|07| Rescue Mission 2.0

Chapter 7!

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"Jaylah," Victoria sighed, moving after the woman.

But Kirk gently tugged her back, "Maybe we should let her go..."

Scotty was the one who answered though, "She's lost people too, Captain," he told the man, before he followed Jaylah into the next room where she seemed to be trying to fix something, the others coming with him, but waiting more in the doorway, "Look that's our friends out there, Lassie. Right? We cannae just leave them behind. Now we could really use your help. We just need you to be brave is all."

"When we were in that place," Jaylah began, after a long moment of silence, "Krall would come and take someone. There were screams. I can still hear them. And we would not see that person again. We did not know who would be next. My father planned an escape. But we were seen by the one they call Manas," she glanced over at them, "My father fought him so I could get out. He was brave and Manas killed him," her face scrunched slightly when she saw Victoria look away with a flinch, Kirk moving his arm around her to pull her closer, "What you want is impossible."

"Look maybe it's not," Scotty shrugged, "Right. My wee granny used to say 'Ya cannae break a stick in a bundle.' You're part of something bigger now, Lassie. Right? Dinnae give up on that. 'Cause we'll sure as hell never give up on you. That is what being part of a crew is all about."

Jaylah looked past him to Kirk, "Is that what you believe in James Kirk?"

Kirk was quiet for a moment, looking more to Victoria, knowing that what Jaylah said had hit her harder than him. While he had lost his father, to the same sort of fate, taking on the enemy so others could escape. He'd been a baby, he had never met his father, never known him, counted him as a hero yes, but he had never felt that loss the way Victoria had. And she had experienced it twice, when her father went to negotiate with Nero to give them time to save others, and when her father had died in front of her eyes. She had had her father all her life and she'd lost him due to an enemy attack. While Spock had gone through the same with his mother, the Vulcan was far better at controlling his emotions and working at not-feeling than they were, he'd look at it logically instead of allowing that pain to help guide his judgement. Jaylah wouldn't connect to that, not with her pain and grief still so raw.

Hearing how Jaylah had lost her own father, it would be hard for anyone and, of all of them, it would be Victoria who would then question their plan and the danger they could be heading into and bringing to their crew in their attempts. If she thought they should find a different way, he would listen to her. He had sworn to himself that he would never put her in a situation like she'd felt with her father, where she'd lost a man she loved.

Victoria took a breath and looked up at him, into his eyes, searching them for a moment, before giving him a short nod.

He gave her a soft smile, leaning in to press a reassuring and thankful kiss to her forehead, then turned to Jaylah, ignoring the smirk Bones was shooting him, "All I know is we stand a better chance with you."

"You lost your dad," Victoria spoke when Jaylah still hesitated, turning to wind her arm around Kirk's waist for grounding, "I have, too. To an enemy also. But you know what? Some of the people Krall took, they're fathers, mothers. They have children out there who will suffer that same loss if we don't help them," she looked Jaylah in the eye, "You would have wanted someone to save your father, I know it. Don't ask us to sit aside and not help them."

Jaylah let out a sharp breath, looking away, before nodding to herself, now determined as she looked back at them, "I will help you."

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