Look at Them
by Dark Apostle
Copyright© 2025 by Dark Apostle
Fan Fiction Story: This is a Star Trek short I wrote about ten years ago, later expanded by me and edited by Steven. Though I won’t continue it, it was fun to revisit. The story follows James, washed out from Starfleet and now a drifting smuggler. In a dingy dive one day, he spots a group of fresh Academy grads. He doesn’t feel happy or sad, just, numb.
Tags: Fan Fiction Science Fiction
James sat, slumped against the wall, nursing a drink. Old habits died hard—never sit with your back to the door, or the other patrons. In places like this, that was the quickest way to get a knife in your back, or something nastier. He let the shadows swallow him, eyes half-lidded but always watching, the rim of his glass brushing chapped lips. The stuff inside was local—Starbreaker, rusty red and cheap enough to kill you if you drank it too fast. He sipped it slowly. Only the desperate or the damned got drunk in joints like this. It was this reason alone that James spotted the three Starfleet cadets as soon as they stepped inside. He could tell, almost instantly, what they were—faces fresh, young, eager, gullible. Almost every patron in the building noticed that, too.
Three Starfleet cadets—green as Terran spring, uniforms still creased from the packaging—hesitated just inside the cantina’s battered hatch. Neon slashed across their faces, painting innocence in lurid blue and red, making them look even younger. Silence prickled. Heads lifted from chipped mugs, rough eyes gleamed from shadowy booths, every grifter and merc in the place sizing up new prey. The room was full of the hungry, the desperate, and the mean—people who’d kill for latinum, or just for the story.
They looked so clean it almost hurt. Fresh meat.
And the wolves watched—old hustlers, desperate traders, Klingon mercs with scarred hands and Orion girls in veiled laughter, tits out and eyes hard. All hungry. All bored. All just waiting for something soft and untested to bleed. Of course, the wolves in the place sniffed it almost immediately. Heads turned, eyes glittered. The chatter dropped a decibel, every set of teeth suddenly a little sharper, smiles stretched a little thinner. The kind of attention that could peel flesh off bone if you stood still long enough.
‘That should’ve been me.’
He grimaced and lifted his drink to his lips, swallowing a mouthful of the harsh Starbreaker he’d been nursing for what felt like hours now. He looked so different from them—older, with tired lines under his eyes, scruffy clothing clinging to his bones, and god, he even had fingerless gloves. The jacket on his shoulders might have once been Starfleet blue, but it had faded, now just another piece of camouflage for a man who didn’t want to be seen.
James was a mess.
‘Kicked out by mom,’ he thought with a grimace as the kids ordered drinks at the bar. The bartender, an Orion man, broad-shouldered and dead-eyed, grunted as he slid synth-leather mugs across the sticky counter. Behind him, two Orion girls worked the crowd, veiled laughter bubbling up as they leaned in, tits pushed up, baiting credchips from any fool desperate enough to think he had a chance. The whole place smelled of sweat, cheap perfume, and old regret.
Suddenly, an equally scruffy-looking Ferengi slithered over and tried to sell the kids something. James watched, remembering his own first meeting with one—how a Ferengi could sense a sucker a mile off, how they became as bloodthirsty as Klingons in the middle of a mating ritual.
‘Good price,’ the Ferengi would say, flashing too many teeth. ‘Something for the girlfriend, boyfriend, yes, something expensive but at a good, reasonable price.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s quality goods.’
‘We were told not to trust Ferengi.’
James grimaced when he heard the squeal and knew immediately what was being screamed, ‘Racist!’
‘I’m not,’ the teenager shouted back.
‘Ferengi are not trustworthy,’ the small being shouted, loud enough to draw more looks, ‘Ask anyone here, I am the most trustworthy person in this sector, I want your commanding officer’s name, I shall report you, racist!’
No one liked being called a racist, and if you were in a multiplantary organization, that was the last thing you’d want on your record. The other patrons watched the scene like jackals, waiting for blood.
James got up, moving with a heaviness born of too many years and too many lost nights. He walked over just as the Ferengi nailed them down with the oldest con in the book—the young man, scared out of his wits, was in the process of handing over a meager amount of latinum. James reached out and grabbed the kid’s hand. The Ferengi squealed and jumped back, all fake outrage and sudden fear, the crowd rippling, hungry for what would happen next.
“Smith.”
James held the young man’s hand in a firm grip.
“Get lost.”
The Ferengi bared his teeth, but James didn’t blink. He looked down at the small being and narrowed his eyes dangerously, the kind of look that could turn bravado to water. The Ferengi cowered back, ears flattening, outrage melting into survival. With a quick, shrill mutter in his own language, the little merchant scuttled off, vanishing between the stools, his scam cut short for the moment.
James let go. The young man stared at him, pulse jumping in his throat, the adrenaline of almost being conned and almost being rescued still racing through his body.
“Sir?”
James snorted. The word stung, even now, after all these years. ‘Not sir, not anymore,’ he thought, but let it go. No need to embarrass the kid further. He didn’t bother to answer. The bar had already started to forget, the crowd’s attention drifting to the next show, the next con, the next round of easy marks. The predators were patient, and the fresh ones kept coming.
He stepped back to his seat and waved at the bar, his voice rough from the last drink. “Oi Anders,” James said. “Another drink.”
Anders, the barkeep, ambled over, tall and broad-shouldered, with sharp eyes and an apron almost comically clean in a place this dirty. His sleeves were rolled, arms inked with faded designs, hair slicked to one side like he still gave a damn about appearance. In a room full of scavengers and shadows, he was the only one who looked like he might be able to handle trouble if it started.
“You sure you’re able to take another, James?”
James grunted, running a hand through his hair, feeling the grit and oil on his fingertips.
“Yes,” James nodded. “I’ll decide when I can’t take anymore.”
Anders gave him a look—half warning, half weary affection. “It normally ends with me kicking you out.”
James offered the barest of shrugs. The arrangement was old, understood. Some nights he made it out on his own, some nights Anders had to do the lifting.
A fresh glass of Starbreaker slid across the table to him, catching the neon light, all rusty promise. James fished into his pocket, found a few battered coins, and dropped them into the barkeep’s broad palm. Anders frowned as he looked at the stack. “This is too much.”
James’s eyes flicked over to the cadets, still shell-shocked, standing awkwardly and uncertain by the bar. “Get the kids something as well.”
“Sure.”
“Nonalcoholic.”
The barkeep laughed, a real sound in this place. He saw James’s eyes—cold, flat, unblinking—and realized the old officer was serious. “Sure.”
The cadets—three of them, barely out of their teens, the sweat not even dry from the Academy’s last test—stood together like lost puppies in a pack of wolves. The tall one tried to thank James but couldn’t get the words out. The girl, cheeks burning, kept her arms crossed, lips pressed tight as if holding back an outburst. The youngest, a nervous boy with too-big boots, kept staring at the Ferengi’s escape route.
James sipped his new drink, felt it burn all the way down, but found no warmth in it. ‘They’ll remember this,’ he thought. ‘Maybe they’ll last longer than I did. Maybe not.’
Anders poured the kids a trio of brightly colored sodas, set them down with a nod and a wink. “On the house, courtesy of the Captain over there.” The word made James flinch, but he said nothing. Let the kids have the story. Let them think some parts of Starfleet could still bleed for them.
James took his drink back to his table and sat down. The glass was heavy, sweat already running down its side, the harsh local liquor catching the light as it sloshed. The old wood beneath his elbow was sticky, carved with initials and blade marks—memorials to men who’d drunk here, won or lost, and stumbled off into the black.
Across the bar, the boy he’d saved turned back to Anders and frowned. “What’s his story?”
Anders barely paused, just shifted his weight, and kept drying the same glass with a practiced, bored rhythm. “He was Starfleet,” Anders said, nodding at James, who now looked even smaller against the dark paneled wall, silhouetted in neon and shadow. “He was going career, had a whole promising career in front of him, got a spot on the Enterprise too.”
The boy blinked, impressed despite himself. “Wow, what happened?”
“His mother,” Anders grimaced. “She wanted him out of Starfleet, despite him having high marks in the academy. Hell, he’s the only other person next to Kirk who beat the Kobayashi Maru.”
“That’s unbeatable.”
“Exactly,” Anders nodded, eyes scanning the crowd, keeping tabs on the troublemakers, the drunks, the mercs eyeing the door for a quick exit. He leaned a little closer, voice lowering.
“Kirk cheated,” Anders smiled at that, “oh.”
“Yup.”
He cleaned a glass, his shoulders rising and falling with an unhurried rhythm. The Orion girls glided by, one of them catching the conversation and arching an emerald brow, curiosity flashing in her eyes. But Anders went on, not missing a beat.
“From what I hear, his mother was a complete bitch about it, nasty piece of work, she’s an admiral or something now and had him stripped of honors, a right proper boot. She had some sort of idea he was going to get himself killed like his pa did, but instead of staying at home like a good little boy, he ran off.”
The three cadets looked over at James, who sat alone, eyes distant, tracing patterns in the condensation on his glass. The bar’s buzz seemed to fade for a moment, all the dangers and temptations swirling around his empty table, never daring to come too close.
“What does he do now?”
Anders shrugged, his hands always busy. “Smuggling mostly.”
“Not exactly an honorable occupation.”
“Work is work,” Anders said, voice steady. In this place, that counted for something. “Some jobs keep you alive, some jobs keep you sane. You can’t always pick both.”
The trio shared a glance—unsure, maybe a little afraid, but still driven by that Starfleet urge to understand, to fix, to connect. At last, they stood up as a group and walked over to James.
He felt their approach before they even reached the table—Starfleet boots were always just a little too loud, too sure. He looked up and narrowed his eyes at them, letting the light catch the danger and the exhaustion there. The lad he’d helped was English like himself, good height, firm body but not too muscular, with a casual handsomeness that had probably opened more doors than it closed—reminded James of himself at that age, when everything was new and the worst that could happen hadn’t happened yet.
The other, quieter of the two boys, stood a step behind, eyes flickering with calculation, face softer, rounder, already scanning the room for threats, secrets, patterns. Smart kid, maybe too smart for his own good—James recognized the look of someone who knew the answer before anyone else even thought of the question, and wore the loneliness that came with it.
The third was a girl, uniform stretched just enough to make a statement she probably wasn’t aware of yet—nice round breasts that jutted out of her jacket, pulling eyes even in a room full of predators. Someone—a Bolian with more guts than sense—started to reach for her ass, but an icy glance from James stopped the hand cold, the threat clear without a word spoken. He’d seen too many bars, too many brutes, too many nights where a look meant the difference between a averted fight and a body on the floor.
The lead kid, the Englishman, cleared his throat, a nervous edge still lingering as he addressed the man who’d just saved his pride and his wallet.
“James,” the lead kid said. “Why did you cheat at the Kobayashi Maru?”
James studied him, measuring the question, measuring the man beneath it. The room fell silent again—at least, in his corner, the hush a subtle pressure. He could feel Anders watching, the Orion girls hanging back with drinks and laughter paused, even the Ferengi lurking in the gloom, waiting to see if the old wolf would bare his teeth.
“You’re kidding?”
“No.”
James’s eyes narrowed, the tired danger flaring up. “You’re not my mother or the inquisition.”
“I know, I’m just curious.”
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