“Okay,” his mom said, her hand already on the handle of the hover car. “I’m going in to get those kids.”

“What?” Jim shook his head. “No way. I’m going.”

“Negative. Someone has to stay here with Desda and that’s you. I know what these kids look like. I have instructions from Melanie on their location and what to say to get them to come with me.”

“Mom—”

“Spock can come with me.”

Jim glanced at Spock who nodded his consent.

“I still think I should go.”

“Because you always have to be in charge,” his mom said, opening the door. “I have a phaser and I have Spock. We’ll go in and get those kids and be back here before you know it.”

Before Jim could argue further Spock and his mom were out of the car and gone up to the school that looked a bit more like a prison to Jim.

“I make you pretty uncomfortable, huh.”

Jim glanced sideways at the Orion teen in the back seat. Rather than respond right away, he crawled over the console between his seat and the driver’s seat and put himself in the driver’s seat.

“What are you doing?” Desda asked.

“We might have to make a fast getaway so having me here makes the most sense.” He sighed, his gaze focused on the school instead of the Orion with his eyes. “Maybe.”

“Maybe what?”

“You make me uncomfortable. I never intended to have kids.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “Not something I wanted. My life was in space. It’s hard to raise a family in those circumstances. It’s a dangerous place and easy to leave orphans behind.”

“Like you.”

“I wasn’t an orphan. You just met my mother.”

Desda grunted. “But your father was killed. My mother died here and until you came along, I had no one but my uncle and his family. And now they are gone.”

“And they were you only family?”

“No. My father is alive,” she said pointedly.

Jim winced, nodded. “Come on, come on. Hurry.”

“You’re anxious.”

“I just want to get home.”

“Where is home?”

“On the Enterpr…” He stopped. No. Not anymore. “San Francisco. Riverside, Iowa for my mom.”

“What were you going to say?”

“You’re full of questions, kid.”

“How else am I going to learn?”

“I was captain of the USS Enterprise with Starfleet. But then the entire crew was grounded.”

“What happened?”

“We responded to a distress signal and were attacked,” Jim told her. “It’s happened before. Lost the whole ship. But this…this was different. We were physically and mentally tortured for an extended period of time. It was…catastrophic. Some didn’t make it. Some who did were never the same. Those of us who mostly survived…we’re not the same either.”

Desda whispered, “Were your attackers brought to justice?”

“No. They’re still out there. Starfleet has closed the space where it happened to all ships.”

They both fell silent then while Jim’s anxiety grew. It was taking too long, wasn’t it? He was going to have to go in after them.

Desda broke the silence. “The Vulcan…Spock. Who is he to you?”

“He was my first officer.” Jim paused. “And my…ex.”

“He dumped you?”

“No. I dumped him.”

She opened her mouth, probably to ask even more nosey questions, but Jim saw movement at the doors of the school and then he spotted his mother and Spock running toward them, Spock carrying both children.

Jim pushed the button that would unlatch the doors and they rushed in.

“Go! Hurry,” Spock ordered. “There is a private shuttle waiting to take us to Earth.”

As Jim pulled away, his foot pressed down on the accelerator, he spotted flashes of gunfire behind them.