🥀 Pike/Una “Beauty and the Beast” inspired fic idea 🥀
Desperate to escape her Illyrian colony and see the stars, Una answers a help-wanted ad and takes a piloting job on board the Enterprise. It’s the perfect opportunity to escape, and the job so easy that she is surprised that no one has taken the job already. When she arrives, she is told that she is allowed to go anywhere on the ship except for the captain’s quarters, which remain locked and he never answers her chimes. However, she soon finds that the Enterprise might not be all that it seems. For one, she is the only life form on board besides her enigmatic boss who communicates only through written messages. Coordinates are always delivered straight to the helm, food is synthesized, and somehow the warp core is always in peak condition. Curious, she vows to figure out the mystery of the ship.
After a devastating accident leaves Christopher Pike bound to a life-support chair and unable to speak except in Morse code, he is shunned by society. Depressed and bitter, all he wants is to escape to the stars on his beloved Enterprise. His chair is integrated with the ship’s computer so he can give orders via text message, deploy the DOT bots to make repairs, and view the security feeds. The one thing he cannot do, however, is pilot the ship. Hoping to hire a skilled pilot, he posts a help wanted ad but word of the Enterprise’s captain has spread and no one wants to take a job working for a monster. He is about to give up hope until one day his ad is answered by the beautiful, smart, and far too curious Una Chin-Riley. They quickly become friends. Una is an excellent pilot and easy to talk to, and she has never heard of Christopher Pike or his accident. Chris finds himself falling for her, but he knows that she would run screaming if she ever saw the real him.
One day, coordinates are not delivered to the helm when Una arrives on the bridge, and her messages to the captain go unanswered. Worried that her boss might be in trouble, Una decides to finally see what’s inside the captain’s quarters.