1.

"Intruder Alert, Captain!" Sulu reported from the helm.

"Where?" Kirk asked instantly alert.

"Deck 7 air lock, sir."

"How?"

"I am detecting a small vessel docked on the Deck 7 air lock." Spock added, continuing to run scans and tests to gather information.

"How did it get past our shields?"

"We had a breach in the shield modulation frequency generator approximately 7.39 minutes ago." Spock determined. "If the intruder modulated their shield frequency to match ours, they could have slipped through."

"Lt. Uhura, dispatch security teams to the intruder's last known coordinates and alert the crew."

"Aye, sir."

"Can we track his movements, Mr. Spock?" Kirk asked.

"I am reprogramming all the environmental consoles on Deck 7 to scan for life forms and compare these to the crew's medical database. There will be a delay of a few seconds but . . ."

"It's better that nothing," Kirk finished.

"Precisely."

"Anything so far?"

"He's humanoid and male." Spock supplied. "The scans are rudimentary given the time constraint."

"Captain," Uhura reported. "I am getting verbal confirmations of the intruder."

"Let's hear them."

"Human male approximately 6'2 dark hair and eyes; he was spotted in Crewman Orly's quarters. She reported that the intruder came through an access tube in her bathing area, oh dear, as she was bathing."

"Anything else?"

"She said he looked . . . dreamy."

"Seriously?"

"Captain," Spock interrupted. "Based on the intruder's trajectory from Deck 7 through the access tube in Crewman Orly's quarters, I have extrapolated that his final destination is the main bridge."

"Great. Lt. Uhura, call for added security teams to all access ports to the bridge; ready yourselves, people."

"I am getting confirmation that the intruder engaged Stephen's security team at Jefferies tube 79 cross section 2." Uhura reported. "They are down."

"That is only a few meters away," Chekov said, anxiously.

Each of the bridge officers readied their side arms and Sulu pulled his katana from under his console. Kirk directed Sulu and Spock to the access ports that lead from the intruder's last know position as Chekov, Uhura and a junior science officer all awaited the bridge breach, nervously.

CRASH!

The panel above the Captain's chair hit the ground and a voice called from the darkness within.

"Jimmy, that was way too easy."

"Sam?"

"The one and only, well not really." A head emerged. "I'm actually a junior so . . ."

"Stand down everyone; call off the intruder alert." Kirk ordered, as the intruder lowered himself into the captain's chair.

"You know this individual?" Spock asked on Kirk.

"Yes," Kirk answered before turning back. "This isn't a joke or a prank Sam; this is a Federation Ship not a playground."

"Are you a member of Starfleet? The actions you have taken today warrant a court martial."

"I don't think so, Spocky."

Spock's mouth snapped shut in surprise.

"Spock, he is Starfleet and he's also my brother. Get out of my chair!" Kirk certainly didn't whine.

"Big brother actually." Sam said as he stood. "I'm Lt. Commander George Samuel Kirk, Jr. with orders to report here from command."

"We received no orders, Commander." Spock said.

"They're from the Epsilon Board." Several of the crew gasped at the name, recognizing the highly secret, highly impressive black ops unit of Starfleet. "They don't send subspace messages."

"Give them over." Kirk said. Sam pulled a PADD from under his shirt and handed them to Kirk.

"There's also an order allowing me to conduct a security test on the Enterprise, so no court martial today." Sam smiled and slapped Jim's face lightly before settling back in the captain's chair

"Lt. Uhura, alert Medical to retrieve Stephen's security team. Mr. Spock, you're with me." Kirk said turning towards the conference room.

"Don't worry, Jimmy; I'll hold down the fort."

"Mr. Sulu, you have the conn." Jim said.

"Aww, come on."

The doors to the ready room closed on the two men leaving them with some privacy before Kirk activated the PADD. He read through quickly seeing that Sam did have authorization to conduct a security test as well as orders for the Enterprise to escort him to Starbase 39.

"There's nothing much in there; just the info on the security test and transport orders."

Spock scanned the PADD that Kirk had handed him, before returning it.

"That is truly your older sibling?"

"Yeah, he left home at 16 and for ten years we had no contact. When I enlisted, he found me one day at the academy. He'd been in a while and was on the Epsilon Board. He obvious couldn't tell me many details but it was nice to know he was alive and successful."

"More than successful, Captain." Spock said. "He's is only three years your senior, aged 29, and a Lt. Commander in the most elite branch of Starfleet. He is . . . impressive."

Spock exited the conference room and Jim frowned.

2.

After the excitement of the bogus boarding, the entire crew was on an adrenaline high and buzzing at the identity of their guest. The crew was ecstatic to have a member of the Epsilon Board on the ship and rumors were flying. All they knew for sure was that they had to reroute to Starbase 39, a two-day trip, to drop Sam off. Jim had had enough of the questions from the crew about Sam and now he just wanted to kick back and maybe have a drink with Bones. He rang the alert outside his friend's quarters and waited to be buzzed in.

At the signal, he entered to see his best friend buttoning up a black civilian shirt.

"Hey, Bones," Jim said. "Want to grab a bite in the mess, maybe share a few drinks later?"

"No can do, Jimmy." He was beginning to hate that nickname. "I have plans with Sam; said something about setting up a double date with the Kona twins from Engineering."

"Oh," Jim said, disappointed. "Which one's for you?"

"I'm not sure . . ."

The alert to the door sounded and Bones, now presentable, opened the door to see Sam with four beautiful women.

"Ladies," Sam said releasing the beautiful Kona twins from his arm. "Your escort awaits."

The two ladies in their matching civilian dress clothes giggled, looking towards the obviously shocked doctor.

"I told you this was a double date, Leo," Sam said with a grin.

"I don't think that's what that means," Jim grumbled.

"Oh my god," Bones leaned over and whispered to Jim. "This man is the best!"

"Yeah," Jim said back.

Leonard, the ever present gentleman, kissed each woman's cheek before offering an arm to each and exiting the cabin.

"Have a great time, guys," he called to the closing door. "I'll just let myself out."

3.

After a lonely evening in his quarters, Jim entered the mess hall the following morning to see Sam chatting up Uhura. Jim smiled a little to himself waiting for her to cut him with her tongue. If there was anyone on this ship that could it would be her.

Instead as he grabbed his meal and made his way over to the table where the senior officers usually sat; he could see them laughing, their heads close. As he sat, he realized he had no idea what they were saying.

"Standard, please," Jim teased, we wouldn't want anyone to feel left out.

"Oh sorry, Jimmy," Sam smiled at his brother.

"It's just so rare to find another person to practice with."

"What was that?" Jim asked. "Sounded like a Vulcan dialect?"

"Actually," Sam said. "It's the proto-language of Vulcan and Romulan."

"Oh, wow," Jim said. "That sounds-"

"Sam speaks 12 languages!" Uhura exclaimed.

"That's impressive."

"Well, 5 are Earth languages like Russian for example." Sam looked over towards a blushing Chekov and winked at him.

Jim frowned.

"Proto Vulco-Romulan is a tricky one, too."

"And Nyota, here, speaks it beautifully."

Nyota? Jim thought. She'd kill me if I ever used her first name.

"You must have a very talented tongue." Sam whispered seductively.

Sulu spit out some of his coffee and Spock said, "Commander," in a warning tone.

"Don't worry, Spock-bot," Sam returned, still smiling. "I'm not trying to steal your girl."

At which, said girl laughed and playfully slapped his arm.

"Hey," Sam said his attention diverted. "Mr. Sulu, right?"

"Yes, sir"

"I hear you are a bit of a swordsman."

"That's right."

Jim could swear Sulu was blushing.

"How about a friendly match this afternoon?"

"Yeah, I am off duty at 1300 hours," Sulu said eagerly.

"Awesome."

4.

It was no coincidence that at 1300 hours Rec Room 2 was packed to capacity. This wasn't due to a collective desire to exercise and had everything to do with the fact that everyone wanted the chance to see Sulu and Sam square off.

After the Narada incident, Sulu's swordsmanship skills were well known but members of the Epsilon Board were tremendous fighters.

Jim was only there to make sure there wasn't a riot or something.

He was surprised to see Spock already seated with Uhura beside him. Jim joined them and spied Scotty with what looked like some kind of recording device.

"Commander, Lieutenant," Jim greeted the couple.

"Captain," they acknowledged.

"I got to say, Spock," Jim started. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Even though this is a mock battle, viewing two highly skilled swordsman can only improve my own technique."

"You're a fencer, too?" Jim asked.

"Intermediate, at best, sir," Spock responded. "My advance combat training is in the Vulcan martial art form suus mahna."

"Oh," Jim nodded his attention now on the two men on the mat. Each was dressed in loose pants and tank tops. Each had an impressive sword in their hands and was testing their weight in the air.

Finally, after many anxious moments, the two men moved into position opposite each other.

Sulu advanced, first swinging high, a move which Sam easily blocked. Then it was on with each man attacking and defending in turn until finally Sam turned and struck Sulu's Sword from his hand.

Fuck Jim though, before he caught himself at his disappointment over his brother's victory.

A few seconds later Sam had Sulu on the ground with the sword to his neck; both men sweaty and breathing hard.

Everyone held their breath until Sam reached out a hand to the younger man and pulled him up; then everyone applauded.

"His sword is impressive," Chekov whispered from next to him and Jim turned to him startled.

"Good job, kid," Sam said to Sulu who smiled and ducked his head. "You're really good; you could give some of my colleagues on the Epsilon Board a run for their money."

"Really, sir?"

"Sure," Sam patted Sulu's arm.

"Hey, Jimmy," Sam called to him.

"Yeah, bro?"

"Hold on to this one; I might recruit him out from under you."

"Ha ha," Jim laughed, but was a little sick at how proud Sulu looked at Sam's praise.

"So, who's next?" Sam said to the crowd. They all looked from one another before noticing that Sam was looking in Jim's direction.

Oh, no, he thought. If Sam trounces me in front of my crew, I'm done

"How about you," Sam said. "Spockarella?"

"Please refrain from adding superlative suffixes to my name."

"You're no fun," Sam said smiling. "Come on."

"Vulcan's are traditionally pacifists," Spock began as he stood and moved to the mat that Sulu had recently vacated. "We abhor the use of weapons unless in the most dire of situations."

"Hand to hand is fine," Sam said. "Don't worry, Spock, I'll go easy on you."

Spock brow of doom rose and Jim laughed inside. Sam was in for it now; he could still remember the force behind the Vulcan's fists and the strength in his fingers as he'd squeezed Jim's neck.

"As a Vulcan-Human hybrid, I have 4x the strength of the average human." Spock said deadpan as he removed two of his shirts, leaving him in a tank top. "Perhaps I should 'go easy' on you?"

"Haha," Sam laughed. "You're funny."

The two men circled each other before moving towards one another. Spock swung his hand towards Sam's face and at the last second, the human side-stepped and brought his own hand in an arc and slapped the top of Spock hand with such force, the sound echoed off the walls.

Spock gasped and pulled his hand towards his chest.

"Oh, no," Uhura whispered.

"What?" Jim asked her as the sound of the open hand face slap Sam delivered to Spock temple, caused the room to gasp in unison.

"It looks like Sam's also trained in suus mahna and familiar with Vulcan weak spots; the hands, psi points of the face and the LOWER BACK! HEY!" Uhura shouted and she saw Sam knee him in this area.

"This isn't good." Jim said.

"He just kneed my boyfriend in the balls!" Uhura said to Jim indignantly. She moved towards the two men but just before she reached the mat, Sam nerve pinched Spock and the Vulcan face planted on the mat.

He turned to see Uhura advancing on him and smiled, "Impressed?"

She answered by kneeing him in the groin. Sam toppled over and the room all "ooh'd" as Uhura knelt by Spock and turned him onto his back trying to shake him awake.

"He's amazing!" Sulu said from next to Jim. "I can't believe he beat Spock."

5.

Jim saw the young prodigy sitting alone in the computer lab at a console and walked over to ask him what he was working on. He needed a mentor and Jim as captain was obligated to fulfill it.

"Hey, Mr. Chekov," Jim asked startling the younger man. "What are you working on?"

"Mr. Scotty and I are writing a paper on improvements that should be made to the transported array. In light of the transporter discoveries during the Narada incident we are proposing to change the basic formulas that govern all the transportation units.

As you and Mr. Sulu fell on Vulcan," Chekov's voice caught at the name of the lost planet. "I was able to manually configure the locking mechanisms for your signal. This is time consuming to calculate and can be done much more efficiently by computer.

If we reprogrammed the basic mathematical formulas so that blah blah, then we might be able to blah. This formula states that blah blah blah is the blah-"

"You're eyes have glazed over, Jimmy."

"Uh," damned that Sam for pointing out to Chekov that he'd began to tune the man out.

"Captain?" Chekov said looking like Jim had just kicked his puppy.

'I'm sorry, Chekov," Jim said. "But I usually get kind of lost when the math talk starts."

"Maybe I could take a look?" Sam offered extending his hand towards Chekov's PADD.

"Really, Sam?" Jim laughed. "Didn't you fail freshman math?"

"Jim," Sam said seriously, almost disappointed. "That was 15 years ago. People can change you know."

Jim stuttered at Sam's hurt expression, he'd truly only meant the statement as a joke. He was also shocked to see Chekov slightly shaking his head at him too.

Sam put his arm around the young ensign's shoulder and they both turned back to the computer console.

+1.

Jim stood with Sam at the transporter pad, ready for him to beam off the ship. If he had to hear another crew member rave about how great Sam was, he was going to explode . . . or cry. It was so frustrating to be compared to someone and be found wanting; first with his father, then with Sam.

"Well," Sam said. "I guess this ship is only big enough for one Kirk."

"Ha, yeah," Jim answered.

"I'm really proud of you, Jimmy." Sam said. "Being captain of the flag ship. All these people who respect you. You make me proud to be a Kirk."

"Come on," Jim said brushing off the praise. "You're a super cool secret agent."

"But you're the savior of Earth!"

"I guess . . ."

"Jim, you are a bona fide hero." Sam said laying his hands on Jim's shoulders. "I'm just a behind the scenes guy. I'm not that great with people."

"But everyone loves you."

"No Jim, everyone 'likes' me. Only you and mom love me," Sam frowned for the first time in front of Jim since he'd run away 15 years ago. You are the only people who really know me."

Jim hugged Sam and was even kissed on the forehead before Sam warned, "Take care of yourself, Jimmy."

"You too, Sam."

Sam smiled at his brother once more before stepping onto the transporter pad and disappearing.

Jim was sad to see him go; they didn't get many opportunities to see each other.

He made his way to the mess and noticed Bones, Spock, Uhura and Sulu eating at the usual table. He grabbed his meal and made his way over to join them.

"Did Sam leave yet?" Bones asked.

"Yeah," Jim said sadly. "I bet you guys are going to miss him."

"Hell, no," Bones said. "I had to break up a fight this morning between two nurses he'd slept with who each believed they were his 'one true love.' I can only take that man is small doses."

"Seriously?" Jim asked. "But you were so excited for your 'double date'."

"I was until he took all four ladies to his quarters . . . without me."

"Not cool." Jim said.

"I know."

"How about you, Uhura?" Jim said turning towards her. "Are going to miss your new BFF?"

"Hardly, he kicked my boyfriend in the balls and had the worst accent when he spoke Andorian."

"I, too, am relieved to see the Commander go; no offense, Captain."

"None taken."

"But there was a decline in 85% of the female crew's work efficiency by 8.79% and a 9.12% decline in 12% of the male crew's work performance." Spock paused. "Plus, he continued to add nonsensical suffixes to my name. This was unappreciated."

"How about you Sulu?"

"Sam was a great sparring partner but that bastard set me months back in my progress with-"

"Chekov!" Uhura announced the navigator's arrival. "How are you this morning?"

"A little sad. Maybe I should not say, or maybe Captain doesn't wish to hear such details but the Commander, Sam, he was my lover." The entire table gaped at him. "We had to end our relationship due to the danger he faces."

"Oh, Chekov," Uhura said sadly.

"What?" Chekov asked. "It was beautiful and magical."

"I really don't want to hear this." Jim rubbed at his closed eyes.

"Listen kid," Bones began. "I need to hook you up with a few of my nurses."

"This is not a good plan, doctor. I am a homosexual."

"I meant to compare notes."

"Well," Sulu interrupted. "It seems we got the better Kirk."

"The lesser of two evils, at least." Bones quipped, slapping Jim's shoulder as the rest of the table nodded.

"Thanks, guys."