STARFLEET ACADEMY, 2281

His mission would be a simple one. At least, that was what he was told by his mother and father. Their accidental discovery of the 'Federation' universe during the Halkan Uprising had demanded that an operative be sent to the new realm for reconnaissance, and that the operative would be the very best the Empire had to offer. That was him.

When Captain James Kirk of the legendary and feared ISS Enterprise had wanted his scheming brother and sister-and-law removed without fingerprints, he had sent in his own son to do it. It was at the boy Peter's suggestion that he be infected with a carrier plague virus very curable for Patient Zero but fatal to all others so exposed. His vernal vacation had been spent learning how to hack all the financial accounts on quarantined Deneva. It was a proud moment for both Captain Kirk and the boy's mother, now-First Officer Uhura after Spock's defection to the Maquis. Before dutifully surrendering the funds, he could have bought and sold their starship.

"I probably should have. Maybe he would have sent David Dehner, instead. 'Your half-brother's a scientist, Peter. We need him on Project Ragnarok'. Guy should be my personal slave, and they coddle him."

He sighed, and again tried to complete his report in the encrypted journal. The aperture would open soon, and his report would have to be beamed through it. The folks had made it clear that keeping this project under their control meant feeding the bureaucrats at Imperial External Espionage constant information about his discoveries. Still bitter and feeling a bit worn, the willing spy contacted via secured wrist-comm the reluctant spy in service to him.

"Bunny, dear. What are they up to?"

On the other end of the line, speaking from a perch he had managed to set up near the largely-unused San Francisco apartment of James Kirk, was the girl known as Cadet Bunny Serenity. A dimensional outsider like himself, she had been the champion known as Sailor Moon before a wily foe had sent her to this place, fortuitously drawn in by Valmont's own altered transport beam. Fortuitously for the cadet known as Taoru Valmont, that is.

"I hate this!"

He waded through her by-now expected objections.

"I'll repeat my question, Bunny. What are Richard Grayson and Saavik Kirk doing right now?"

In what was an as-yet unrealized irony, 'Richard Grayson' was as big a lie as 'Taoru Valmont'. In fact, it was nearly the same lie. For while one of them was native to this 'Federation', both were in fact Peter Kirk, and despite some transtemporal oddities, they were roughly the same age. The native Peter Kirk was believed to have been murdered fifteen years earlier, and with common agreement by the native Kirk and Sarek, it was decided to keep the galaxy at large ignorant of his return.

"Bunny? Answer me, or I swear I'll delete the identity I created for you. You've refused me your company, and I respect that. But if I leave you as the legally blank non-person you arrived here as, you won't be able to refuse the people in Admiralty Hall. And if the Admiral Bunson here is half the pervert her brother in my world is, wellll..."

"OKAY!! She..she has her mouth...around it. God, I hope she gargles or something. And I am sooooo not borrowing her toothbrush again."

While her prudishness almost made him bust a gut laughing, her report for now had no value. Grayson and Kirk had to be the most conservative, monogamous sex-aholics in the history of two universes.

"Ok. Keep watchi...."

"Hey! Now he's got his face in her...ya know. Rei always said her boyfriend hated that. Course, I still haven't forgiven her for getting into it with him while she was baby-sitting my...."

He cut her off, as he always did when she started talking of her strange home universe of sailor scouts, giant mechs and sun-destroying warriors.

"Just watch for anything that really offends you. Valmont out."

Before he left this place, he was determined to have the skinny thing enter his bed of her own free will, a true innocent corrupted beyond measure.

"As long as she doesn't talk, that is. Though if her stamina equals her verbosity, I may just take her home."

He then considered. Bunny's prudishness. Grayson and Kirk's disturbing, uniminded devotion. The Hall's ridiculous regulations about personal sexual coupling, as though rutting could ever be regulated. He knew then he had his report. He checked the locks on his Academy dorm-room, the anti-listening devices he'd crafted, and then the cyber-lock on his journal. He began to recount the recent past.

"Premised, that sex is a weapon in both universes. It is one of the few traits I found recognizable when I came to this place, where parents don't care enough to initiate their children themselves. If not for my mother's attentions, Wotan knows how I would have performed my first time with a woman. And I certainly would not have been ready for the events I am about to relate."

==========================================

TWO WEEKS PRIOR

COMMAND TRACK CURRICULUM

HYPOTHETICAL SITUATIONS CLASS

Most instructors were too good to be removed by The Hall, at least at this stage, though they were so heavily scrutinized and so often countermanded, many had left of their own will. Those that stayed tended to be the toughest and the sharpest, and they were not above using word-games, true semantics and other verbal misdirection to try and make their students the kind of thinkers that the crypto-bigots at the Hall would not be able to easily manipulate.

"Cadet Grayson, can you answer the question?"

Peter Kirk as Richard Grayson, supposedly a young male relative of Lady Amanda of Vulcan, used no overt disguise. He was hidden by the belief that he was long dead. His physical resemblance to Captain Kirk was noted by some, but disputed by just as many in that odd way people have. That said, few debated his other commonality to Kirk that shined through like a series of novae.

"The answer is respect, sir. The captain must move quickly to establish and earn it. Without it, all else is dust."

"What about you, Cadet Kirk?"

Saavik Brianna Kirk was the Captain's adopted daughter, and lover to her hidden stepbrother Peter. But she lacked some confidence in herself and her worth, oweing to several factors that she herself would take pains to admit were not his fault. So sometimes this frustration and belief that she was her beloved's inferior would be resolved by unwittingly lashing out at him.

"Perhaps Cadet Grayson should consider not moving in so immediate and rapacious a manner, and let the respect accrue naturally. A crew can be overwhelmed by so needy an approach."

By now, Commander Kagane knew better than to ask Grayson for a rebuttal. But in fact the rebuttal came as the entire class froze motionless, save for Kirk and Grayson. He looked at his lover with a glare.

"And I quote : 'Go Faster, Peter--Oh, Why Can't You Go Faster? Is it your spine, or do you lack some other bone?' Make up your mind!"

Her upper lip shook.

"Just unfreeze the class."

The telepath did just that, as Kagane turned to Valmont for an answer.

"Cadet Valmont, your roommate and his associate seem to think that respect is the linchpin to a new captain's initial establishment. Do you concur?"

"Respect is important, Commander. But then, so is fear. So I'll pick fear first."

Before he could follow-up or be asked for such, a new voice was heard.

"Another Valmont piece of pure crock-baked bullshit. Make the crew fear the Captain. Rule with an iron hand."

Felicia Ayellers nearly responded to Valmont out of a matter of routine. He was as intense as Grayson, with none of Kirk's confidence problems. Yet Grayson seemed untouchable to some, so Valmont became her target most times. An intensely sharp debater, she had as yet never lost. Valmont became suddenly determined to make this a first time.

"If Cadet Ayellers were to let me finish, she might find out that I was talking about instilling fear of space, and its nearly infinite array of hazards. That tells a crew that from top to bottom, all must work together at all times. The mightiest ship of the line is still only a tin can inflated with air."

Kagane nodded.

"A good quote from Captain Kirk, Cadet."

Valmont hadn't realized his father made the same quote in both universes. A quick collation program would be in order to find any others. But Ayellers wasn't finished.

"Oh, sure. That's what he means, now. Good course correction, Mister Valmont."

Valmont was about to raise his voice in public, regarded as a sign of preyable weakness in his home universe. But Kagane cut him off before this, and pointed at Ayellers.

"This is becoming as tiresome as Grayson and Kirk's hormonal banter."

Grayson and Kirk shot each other a nervous look. They hated seeming obvious. Kagane made a pronouncement.

"Cadets Ayellers and Valmont will debate their differing views on this subject tomorrow. My advice is to be ready, people. Because we're settling this thing, then and there."

The class let out, and Ayellers stopped by Valmont's desk as she went.

"You want to really settle what's between us, meet me by the solar sheds. Eight tonight. Wear something you don't mind getting torn off."

Grayson poked his head over when she was gone.

"It was nice knowing you. When should I list for a new roommate?"

So far, despite a suspicion that Grayson was hiding something, Valmont had come up empty on his information expeditions. Similarly, Grayson's telepathy was blocked by the common threads of DNA they shared across a dimensional divide. So these comments were all the two Peter Kirks had, in way of confronting each other.

"Don't you have Vulcans to do?"

Grayson's telepathy meant he could not shut out the pain of every young woman Valmont had used and abandoned since his arrival. His contempt for his roommate was not hidden or disguised.

"She's going to eat you alive, Taoru. And when that happens, I won't be the only one cheering."

Valmont shrugged.

"Eat me alive, Richard? Hell, I'm counting on it."

Valmont met Ayellers by the solar sheds, as promised. She led him into a side-maintenance room.

"These things are still processing power built up from the daylight hours. We're safe, but the cameras the Hall's Social Patrol have are up here are still useless for another two hours."

He looked at her, and shook his head.

"Why are we here?"

"What are you, suddenly dense?"

"Let's presume so."

She half-smiled.

"You know what they say about people who seem to hate each other?"

He shrugged again.

"That one ends up destroying the other?"

She moved and unzipped his trousers.

"You'll hear a sucking noise."

He smiled.

"Followed, no doubt, by a chomping-down noise, and my presumed yelps of intense pain?"

She knelt down, made good on her promise, then looked up.

"You have to trust sometimes, Mister Valmont."

Her service was indeed to his liking, and when she was done, he pulled down her trousers and started to return the favor. Ayellers actually cooed a bit as he went on. She looked down.

"What, is that tongue of yours curved or ribbed, or something?"

"I had a very patient teacher in this, Mister Ayellers. An older woman. Friend of the family, you might say. Very--close to my mother."

As he stood up, she nodded.

"My Dad's shipping business partner was my first. He was mostly drunk, though. Popped off from one quick boob-rub. But I extorted his ass so bad. Whenever my folks won't get me something, he quietly intervenes. The ideal uncle."

He grinned.

"You must think of yourself as a ruthless little thing."

She removed her undershirt.

"Do these puppies look little? Let's see if you last as long with these as you did in my mouth."

She couldn't have known that he had trained himself for endurance with several young nubiles from his own world, where such endurance was prized. As she rubbed his manhood between them, he kept from climax by puzzling over the many strange nicknames this universe had for human female breasts. Puppies was a new one for him.

"You can't be human, and I know you're not gay. Too many complaints from the female contigent of the Academy loser squad. I checked."

"I'm human, Mister Ayellers. As to the other part, let's just say that where I hail from, the idea of gender-preference is whatever catches your eye for most of that day."

Giving up on her pair of expensive cosmetic enhancements, she stood up and then turned her back on him.

"Both sides of the menu, huh? Guess that means you're an expert on the backside. Do it."

But to her surprise, he gently turned her back around and coupled from the front. His motion began, and she was silent for a minute. Then, through her moans, she talked.

"Hey! I said I wanted it in...ohhhh."

In his home universe, Taoru Valmont as Peter Kirk would have had to watch his lover every minute. Wondering who possibly sent them as an assassin, what favor they might want, what they might steal or if the lover was a test sent by his parents. But here, his full fervor and considerable skill was on making Felicia Ayellers squeal. After a half an hour, she looked him in the eyes.

"Please--take me from behind."

He kept pumping.

"Don't you want me to look you in the eyes, like right now?"

"Not my way. Behind."

He kept right on.

"I shouldn't. Its demeaning."

"Demean me. Debase me!"

His thrusts grew harder.

"Which rear orifice are we talking? Cause that sort of entry can be painful."

"The smaller one. I like pain. Do it!!!"

And after a last, obscenity and insult-tinged demand laced with salt and fury, he acquiesced and took her as she requested. He lasted so long, the Social Patrol nearly caught them. Escaping, they each went to their dorm rooms to prepare for the next day's debate.

He entered the class to see Ayellers talking with her friends. Sadly, he had called her strategy right.

"He was lousy. Short-fuser, if you know what I mean. Groping me like a pre-teen. Acted like he'd never seen a woman before. And he kept apologizing and making excuses for the worst performance I've ever seen."

She turned around, feigning surprise to see him.

"Oh. Do you have a different version of events, Mister Valmont? One in which you weren't the lousiest lay in the history of the sport? You do fine in here, where its all theory. But the real battles find you somewhat limp."

Valmont said nothing. He merely held up a micro recorder. The sounds it played back were familiar to Ayellers.

"No..take me up my....no, please, back there...when are you going to ride my...you piece of...if you aren't in my...please...yesss...don't pull out for anything..I don't care if you see bloo..."

Valmont shut the recorder off. He smirked as Ayellers face drained of color.

"Of course, you could just say I faked all that. Or do you have a different explanation as to why a top cadet, and would-be future starship captain was begging to be taken in the most undignified fashion possible?"

She stammered as she tried to respond.

"Tha-tha-that doesn't affect my command ability. That's g-g-go-got nothing to do with running a starship."

He nodded.

"You're right, it doesn't matter. Anymore than it would for me if I were a lousy partner in bed. But you tried to shred my confidence by spreading that lie. I spoke to some other guys you've known around the Academy, Ayellers. Seems every time a competition came up, there was a night of hot sex followed by a pre-competition loud proclamation from you that the man in question came up short, sexually. Then, you proved their lack by beating them handily in the competition. But you played with fire once too often."

She looked up at him, and extended a hand.

"So we're even now?"

He chuckled openly, and pushed her hand away.

"You only wish. What my sexual prowess might or might not be is irrelevant. But you definitely said those pleas for me to put it where the sun doesn't shine. You can even say that you were faking the pleasured cries. But which version do all your friends believe? You'll never know for sure. Never. Even? I destroyed you. There is no getting even for that. You can seek out-and-out revenge, maybe. But we are not even."

The two were called to stand for the debate by Commander Kagane. But Ayellers just ran out in tears. The class froze again, briefly. Saavik looked at her Peter as Richard Grayson.

"Peter?"

"Saavik, I can freeze this asshole as well as anyone else. So why can't I read him?"

"I am glad you can't. I do not think you would like what you saw. I know I wouldn't."

He smiled.

"I just realized. Comparatively speaking, we two are actually in a healthy relationship."

"That, Peter-Kam, is a very disturbing thought."

The class was unfrozen, and Valmont calmly gave forward his side of the debate. Ayellers never returned, to the class, or to the Academy.

=======================================

THE PRESENT

"...I'm reliably told our resident do-gooder, Richard Grayson, got her out of the Academy without a Hall review. But I don't think she'll ever be the same. So keep building that invasion fleet, because these people know nothing of real warfare. At their core, they are a bunch of preachy weaklings. Nothing more."

Turning off his journal, Valmont called his spy.

"Bunny, what are they up to now?"

"Ummm--you won't believe this."

"Try me."

"They're playing with a toy train set."

He puzzled.

"What is 'toy train' a euphemism for?"

"Its not a euphemism. They're playing with an old toy train set. She's the engineer. She's wearing an engineer's hat. This is getting really strange. They have robes on. They look happier than they did before, with that other stuff. Can I leave now?"

Valmont added to his journal.

"They are a bunch of preachy weaklings...and a bunch of damned weirdos!"

He was now again confused and annoyed. Slowly but surely, the universe around him continued to act to change its observer. One day, he would even regret his actions of two weeks back, and the casual shredding of Felicia Ayellers.

But this was not that day.