#1 With a Bang

A/N: Hi, all! I was just watching Star Trek when I got the idea for this. Mainly Chekov/OC, but includes other characters as well. Enjoy, and review if you will.

2258.365

New York, America, Earth

Relda Bennett was, for the first sixteen or seventeen years of her life, a perfectly average girl. She attended high school (in which she was a bit of a loser), but pulled out at the age of fifteen. Her parents had recently undergone a bitter divorce. Since then, Relda had admittedly been hanging out with a bad crowd – a group of drinkers, smokers and gamblers.

Relda's dad was a workaholic, and so she went out and did whatever she wanted when he wasn't around. This was especially true to Saturday nights.

Hijacking her dad's beat-up old car, Relda headed down to the local club. Sure, she was only seventeen, but with a load of make-up she passed for a few years older. Besides, half of her mates were eighteen or nineteen, and when she was with them the bouncers never even asked for her ID.

"Hey, honey."

Relda would recognise Shazza's raspy drawl anywhere. She stood over near the entrance, nattering away on her high-tech mobile while she smoked a cigarette. The fumes wafted at Relda as she approached, and she coughed pointedly. Despite the people she hung out with, she had been able to keep out of trouble herself – so far.

Shazza hung up and leaned over to kiss the air next to Relda's cheek. In the twenty-first century, she would have been derisively labelled 'white trash', but in this day and age, girls like Shazza were the epitome of cool. She had been a rebellious girl two years above Relda in school, and they had clicked ever since Relda had cut school out of her life altogether.

"How's the home life, chick?"

Relda rolled her eyes and mimed throwing up. She liked hanging out with Shazza and the crew – it made her feel older. She got a kick every time she dressed up and looked in the mirror, at the practically unrecognizable girl in the mirror with the dark blonde hair all mussed up and the grey eyes rimmed with black.

"So don't want to go there. It's New Year's Eve."

Shazza pumped a fist in the air. "Then let's party."

Relda planted her hands on her hips. "As long as you don't get us into trouble like last time."

Shazza tossed back her dark curly hair and shrugged, examining her nails with a self-satisfied smile.

"What can I say? Trouble's my middle name."

Noticing Relda's sceptical look, Shazza's eyes widened in an attempt to make her look innocent.

"It's true."

"Bullshit."

"Okay, it's Bethany. But seriously, come on. What's New Year without a bit of fun, huh?"

She nudged Relda, who wasn't too assured. Shazza's schemes usually managed to end up with either Shazza vomiting and Relda holding back her hair, or Relda getting into fistfights with people Shazza had picked fights with.

"And you have to drink tonight," Shazza pouted, which served only to make her shiny lips look like well-oiled sausages, "Puhlease? It's New Year, baby. You're going to have to get used to drinking sometime."

Relda wrinkled her nose. She had never really drunk, despite all Shazza's pleading. Tonight was different though. Tonight was a chance to loosen up completely. She resolved she'd only have one or two.

"I don't want to be too drunk to see the fireworks."

Shazza giggled delightedly, linking her arm around Relda's waist.

"You say such silly things."

U.S.S Enterprise, somewhere above Earth

Sulu looked down at his watch. "Five minutes, twenty-two seconds and counting."

Jim Kirk erupted into raucous, rather drunk laughter as he slung an arm around Sulu's shoulders. The party mood on the U.S.S Enterprise was infectious, but Sulu still retained a degree of formality about the whole thing, something Jim couldn't understand.

"Well, stop counting."

It was nearly Earth New Year – and they had decided to remain in orbit around the planet, along with several other Starfleet ships, lighting up the atmosphere like disco balls as everyone everywhere partied.

In truth, everybody had become more relaxed than they had been for a long time. Scotty had taken up to rigging some lights in the floor so that they flashed different colours, a makeshift dance ball. Uhura had dug up an old disco ball from somewhere, and the lights reflected off the thousands of tiny surfaces. Scotty, who had previously been DJing and spinning some wicked tracks, had now taken up an impromptu break-dance which was earning cheers from the gaggle of ensigns watching him.

Spock and Uhura were in the half-darkness, making out. Some of the younger ensigns were pointing and snickering, while others were doing something similar.

Over by the drinks table, McCoy was attempting to persuade young Chekov that he needed a glass of brandy. The teenager was flustered, politely declining, but there was no arguing with Leonard McCoy was he was this boisterous.

"Four minutes and eleven seconds," Sulu muttered rebelliously.

There was a loud bang followed by cheers and laughter. Spock and Uhura broke apart to glance over at the dance floor – it looked like Scotty (more than likely drunk) had attempted to do a handstand, only to crash back down to the ground.

"You can't argue with the force of gravity," Spock called over to him.

"Agh, shut up!" Scotty yelled back, in a good-natured fashion, "Go back to your face-sucking."

The younger ensigns laughed collectively, wolf-whistling and pointing over at Spock and Uhura. The Vulcan's smile was slightly strained, but it was better than no smile at all.

"If you insist, Mr Scott."

Jim was even more intoxicated than Scotty, indicated by the way he had taken to talking in a deep and meaningful way to Sulu, who was looking a little taken aback.

"I love you, man. If you hadn't screwed up so badly on our maiden voyage we would all be dead. You saved our lives from all that CRASH BANG VOOOSH! You know what I mean?"

Sulu shook his head. "Umm…no, not really, Captain."

Jim groaned and clapped his hands to his cheeks. "I need an apple…"

Two medical officers had linked arms and were doing some kind of old-fashioned Irish jig to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. The collective shout of: "Scull! Scull! Scull!" alerted McCoy to a young Vulcan officer in his early twenties – Rahnek, if memory served McCoy correctly – who was downing as much alcohol as he could, to positive feedback from the other ensigns.

"One minute and fifty-three seconds."

McCoy shook his head, but in truth had consumed too much alcohol to be truly annoyed. Starfleet had adopted a new policy which involved cadets going straight onto Starfleet ships to learn first-hand, rather than spending three years at the Academy. Of course, it was up to the cadets to elect whether they would rather the hands-on, practical experience, or learn within the safety of the Academy for a few years – but the result was many young cadets and ensigns aboard the U.S.S Enterprise. All of them were older than Chekov, who was frustrated by the lack of company around his own age. In fact, glancing around, McCoy had to guess that their irresponsible Captain had actually gone by his word and invited the crew of the U.S.S Surplus to the party.

"Twenty-eight seconds!"

Sulu was starting to sound excited now, and there were roars of anticipation from the cadets and ensigns. McCoy winced – he always got a headache when he was drunk, and the racket the youngsters provided wasn't helping the matter. He resolved to go down and take some pills for that when this was over.

Scotty had even stopped the music, and everyone had raised their glasses of alcohol as the clock ticked down to midnight.

"TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE…HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Everyone raised their arms and clinked glasses to welcome the year 2259.

New York, America, Earth

Everything was going according to plan. Jarred Medwin had been waiting for this a long time, and he tossed back his silver-blue as he watched and waited. Despite the colour of his hair, Jarred was not old…he was just not entirely human. His eyes remained fixed to the Empire State Building.

Starfleet would suffer for the error of their ways. He would make sure of it. He had been lingering in the darkness for far too long, and now he was going to prove what he was capable of. Jarred tossed his head impatiently and checked his watch. Only two minutes to go.

He smirked to himself as he thought of Starfleet's reaction. They'd thought Nero was bad? That Romulan was nothing compared to the terror that Jarred would unleash. He would bring Earth – and by that means, Starfleet – to its knees. He might be young, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable.

"Five…four…three…two…one."

A delighted smile lit Jarred's face, and his eyes were lit with malice.

"Happy New Year."

The Empire State Building exploded, raining down shards of glass and rubble upon New York City. Then the screaming started, like a chorus of the damned.