Meanwhile, in the Shipyard Bar in Iowa, we push down a hallway, music heard, what seems like a party is going on through windows in the double-doors ahead, and a woman swoops into view in front of us. Wearing a short skirt and high boots as she enters the busy bar.
As the woman makes her way, we see her gorgeous, dignified face. This is Uhura. She leans into the bartender warmly, her smile glorious as she orders several exotic drinks of alien nature along with Earth based beverages.
From seemingly no where, she hears a comment - that is a lot of drinks for one woman. Jame Kirk leans in, 22, he's charming, witty, dangerous, rebellious. He grins at her, flirty. Uhura gives him a look, then back to the bartender and additionally orders a shot of Jack, straight up. Kirk offers to buy both of them a shot, but she rejects him. Damn, he likes her already. He introduces himself, she gives him her last name, but refuses his prodding for her first name.
Kirk moves closer to her and asks about her studies. Xenolinguistics, which she doubts he would understand, but he surprises her with a competent definition of the field. His charm and wit has her smiling and laughing, when a burly starfleet Cadet appears. The Cadet thinks he's playing the chivalrous hero, but Uhura deflates his bravado that she can handle Kirk herself just fine. Disregarding Uhura, the burly cadet talks forceful with Kirk when he continues with his jokes and charm.
Kirk tells him it was just a joke, "Cupcake."The burly Cadet spins him around and his threats escalate. The other Cadets, seeing trouble, approach. With his three buddies by his side, Cupcake Cadet gets more belligerent. Kirk throws fuel on the fire by egging him on with taunts.
The cadet swings his fist, landing a punch right on Kirk's jaw, knocking him back. The other Cadets join in. Though he is getting a beating, he's also delivering his own pain despite fighting four large men.
Then another Cadet grabs him and slams onto a table and delivers a succession of punches to Kirk's face. Suddenly, an ear-splitting whistle makes everyone stop, they turn standing in the doorway is a tall, rugged Starfleet officer, Captain Christopher Pike. The Cadets file out, in for it. Pike moves to a dazed, semi-conscious Kirk, now upside down on a table mutters, "you can whistle really loud, you know that?" . . . . . and Kirk passes out.
Later at the almost-closed bar, only Kirk and Pike sit at a table. Kirk's bloodied, tissue in his nose. Pike tells him that his own dissertation was on the USS Kelvin, Kirk's father's ship. Pike attempts to talk some sense into the rebellious young man and to persuade him to join Starfleet, firmly believing that he can do more with himself than be "the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest."
Kirk does not want to hear it and laughs at the idea of joining Starfleet. Pike drives a message, Kirk was meant for something better. Something special. And that just hangs there for a beat. Because Pike just hit a nerve. Kirk does his best not to show it. He's getting under Kirk's skin, but Kirk keeps up the attitude. Pike also suggests that Kirk could be an officer in four years and have his own ship in eight.
Pike stand up and tells him Riverside shipyard, a shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow, 0800. Pike leaves with this parting thought, his father saved 800 others in just 12 minutes of command, and challenges Kirk to do better. Kirk sits there in deep thought, absent-mindedly fiddling with a Starfleet ship salt and pepper shaker.
The Iowa Plains, corn stalks whipping by, Kirk on his spokeless motorcycle rocketing across the plains. His soul's been stirred and he's fighting it, he cranks it, electric engine screaming. At the Starfleet construction yard, Kirk pulls up, stops, and stares intently. An incredible reveal of a shipyard. At its center, the skeletal frame of a new ship under arclights. Unmistakably, the U.S.S. Enterprise. Unformed, raw, like its future captain.
Close up on Kirk, considering Pike's offer, his future, his fate. The shipyard is abuzz with activity, cadets loading into a shuttle. Pike starts to climb in until he notices Kirk on his motorcycle, driving into the shipyard.
Kirk stops the bike near the shuttle, steps off, has nothing, no bags, just the clothes on his back. A shipyard worker passing by compliments his bike. Kirk kicks the stand, tosses the guy the startcard into the worker's construction helmet, giving him the bike.
Kirk walks past the startled worker and approaches Pike. Kirk boasts he will finish Pike's challenge in three years instead of four. Pike grins as Kirk passes him. Inside the shuttle, Kirk moves down rows of new recruits, some of them alien. Passes Uhura and the bar fight Cadets, who perk up when they see him, Cupcake Cadet has a bandaged hand. Kirk finds a seat and straps in.
Kirk turns to see a man being forced out of the bathroom by a female flight officer. The man, at 34, has a Southern lilt and looks like a prisoner waiting for the guillotine to fall. McCoy suffered from aviophobia and attempted to remain in the shuttle's bathroom during the flight, as there were no windows in that section of the craft. However, a flight officer discovered him and forced him to sit with the other passengers and buckle up.
He sits next to James T. Kirk, who assured McCoy of the shuttle's safety, to no avail; the nervous doctor kept ranting to Kirk about the health hazards of flying in a shuttle. McCoy confided to Kirk his reasons for joining Starfleet, saying that his wife "took the whole damn planet in the divorce," and "all I have left are my bones." He and Kirk then introduced each other and shared a flask of alcohol as the shuttle takes off for Starfleet Academy.
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