My Star Trek One-Shots

Christopher Pike - Temporal Drift PT 2

Daisy didn't expect to grow roots on a starship. She certainly didn't expect people to start seeking her out—not just for drinks, but for her. Her voice. Her sarcasm. Her perspective.

The Warp Core Lounge was open nearly every night now, and somehow, Daisy had built a space where ensigns and lieutenants and science officers could take off their Starfleet masks and just be. She listened more than she spoke—an instinct from years behind a bar—and learned quickly who needed the hard stuff and who needed jokes.

She knew when Ortegas was avoiding a report, when Uhura was overwhelmed with a project, and when Nurse Chapel needed someone to watch old Earth musicals with after hours.

But the night Dr. M'Benga showed up? That surprised her.

He came in after Alpha shift, his posture heavy with something he didn't say. He asked for something strong. Daisy poured it without questions, but watched him closely as he sat alone at the end of the bar.

"You want company or silence?" she asked gently.

"Silence that doesn't feel like isolation," he murmured.

Daisy understood that all too well. So she sat with him in quiet, pouring one more, then sliding over a bowl of replicated almonds, just to give his hands something to do. They didn't talk about his daughter. Or the war. Or the weight he clearly carried.

But when he stood to leave, he looked at her with something new—respect, maybe. "Thank you, Miss Derrick."

She only smiled. "Anytime, Doc."

Two nights later, she was closing up when it happened. Most of the crew had gone to sleep or rotated shifts. Daisy moved behind the bar, humming under her breath, collecting stray glasses.

She heard the door open, didn't look up right away. "Sorry, closed for the—"

"Turn around."

The voice was flat. Wrong. No emotion behind it. Not like any crewmember she knew. Daisy slowly raised her eyes.

It was Ensign Valle. At least, he looked like Ensign Valle. But his stance was rigid. His eyes . . . blank. And he was holding something that didn't belong in anyone's hands after hours—a stun baton, modified.

Her heart climbed into her throat.

"Okay," she said, voice calm. "What's going on, Valle?"

"Do not speak again."

Yikes.

He moved forward, but she was already stepping back. Her old bartender instincts kicked in—not the drink-pouring kind, the late-night brawl prevention kind. She'd dealt with drunk Marines on shore leave. A glitchy crewman didn't scare her half as much.

She ducked when he swung. Rolled under the bar. Grabbed the emergency fire suppressor and hurled it at his head with a solid clang. He stumbled, dazed, long enough for her to yank the baton from his hand and hit the emergency alarm under the bar.

By the time security arrived, she had him unconscious and face-down on the floor.

Ortegas later called it "hot as hell."

It turned out "Valle" wasn't Valle at all.

A shapeshifter. Some sort of experimental spy organism piggybacking on recent chaos near a damaged Starfleet beacon. A fluke—Starfleet said. A breach they hadn't anticipated.

Pike came to see her after it was all over. She sat alone in her quarters, hair still damp from her post-debriefing shower, legs tucked under a blanket. He stood in the doorway, hands behind his back.