Fortune's Favoured Child - Part Three
McCoy recoiled and at the same moment the transporter effect
seized him and within minutes he found himself back in the
pirates' apology for a sickbay. Training kicked in and he found
himself tending to the wounded and dying almost automatically,
while most of his mind compulsively played and replayed the
sight and sound of hatred in the mouth of a man he had thought
his friend. As he sweated over the injured bodies of his enemies,
almost the worst thing about his situation was the conviction
that he deserved that hatred.
Back in the cell there was a moment's startled silence as the
doctor disappeared, broken by Kirk demanding to know what
had happened to his bottle. He eventually spotted its broken
pieces on the floor and looked round at them, obviously
calculating his chances of getting one of them to bring him a
replacement. Rightly assessing them at zero, he rolled off the bunk
to land, swaying, broken glass crunching under his boots. "Whoo,
'm drunker than I thought I was," he said thickly and set off on
an unsteady course towards the replicator.
Half way there he stopped, paled and put a hand to his stomach.
"I think I'm going to..." and it was Scott who, recognising the
symptoms, reacted with instinctive sympathy and dragged him
into the head where he was horribly and noisily sick.
A few minutes later they came back out. Scott helped him onto
one of the lower bunks, returned to the facilities, produced a
wetted cloth and gently wiped his Captain's face. Kirk smiled up
at him, a pallid reflection of his normal flashing grin, and patted
the side of the engineer's face.
"Thanks, Scotty," he said softly.
"You shouldnae drink that stuff, Jim." Scott was all gruff concern.
"Ye'll only make ye'self ill."
He half-expected Kirk to react with the same angry contempt he
had shown everyone else but he did not. He looked up into the
worried face bent over him and sighed. "I know Scotty," he said
tiredly, "but I'm like the man in the song, 'I'm weary with the
huntin' and fain would lie doon' - I've just got to get the noises in
my head to shut up the hell up." And with that he rolled away
from them all to face the wall.
The feeling of helplessness grew. There were several people
amongst them who had the skill to take over the ship if only
they could escape from their prison; unfortunately none of them
were Doctor McCoy, the only person who was actually allowed out.
At Mr Spock's suggestion they started to make a knockout gas
from ingredients provided by the replicator. If McCoy was
returned to them, he could release the gas next time he called on
to treat the injured. The plan was foiled when the completed gas
bomb and a makeshift respirator they had cobbled together were
both transported away. As they disappeared, the only sound that
could be heard over the characteristic buzz of a Klingon
transporter was that of Mr Scott, swearing lustily.
"What the hell did you expect?" Kirk had rolled back to face them.
"Just because they're pirates doesn't mean they're stupid - you're
supposed to be Starfleet's finest, of course they'll be keeping an
eye on you." He shook his head, an ugly sneer painted all over the
usually handsome face. "Do I have to do all your thinking for
you?"
He looked appalling, his undershirt was stained with vomit and his
face, which had been pale and strained before any of this had
happened, was bleached an unearthly grey by the fierce overhead
lighting and the after-effects of the drink.
All this was bad enough, but perhaps the worst thing was the
expression in his eyes, a sort of hollowness, a complete lack of
the conscience and consideration for others which were among
his greatest assets as captain.
Seated on one of the bunks, Uhura suddenly realised
who Kirk reminded her of; it was his own mirror image from the
alternate universe. She had only ever seen their counterparts on
log tapes but the same callous anger had blazed in the same hazel
eyes she saw on the other side of their cell. She shivered despite
the suffocating heat, suddenly she felt very cold.
Kirk dropped onto his back with a snort of disgust and Stone,
who had invested far too much hope in the gas bomb, lost his
temper entirely. In two strides he stood beside Kirk's bunk,
dragging him out by his undershirt, raising his fist to smash the
insolent face that jeered up at him.
Spock reacted quickly, grabbing the raised fist before the blow
could land as Kirk lay unresisting, half on, half off the bunk,
suspended from Stone's fistful of shirt.
Kirk was laughing as he flung his arms wide. "Go on hit me," he
taunted. "You know you want to, I deserve it, c'mon hit me,
let's all be degraded together."
Repulsed by the knowing leer almost as much as by the
knowledge of what he had nearly done, Stone let go of the
stained shirt and turned away, fighting for calm.
Kirk had fallen out of the bunk and lay on the floor, still laughing
weakly. Although Ensign Malik had tried to clean up the broken
glass, he must have missed a piece because a pool of livid, red
blood began to form behind Kirk's left shoulder, and it was
probably fortunate that it was at this moment that Doctor
McCoy was returned to them.
It was obvious to McCoy that the situation had worsened in his
absence but he could not allow himself to react to that. "Is
nobody going to help him up?" he demanded and was unpleasantly
surprised when only Spock came forward. Swiftly they heaved
their friend back on to a bunk and eased him out of his
bloodstained shirt, so that McCoy could tend to the deep cut over
the shoulder-blade and the smashed mess he had made of his
right hand.
When McCoy had finished, Kirk shrugged back into the sodden
T-shirt and McCoy ran his scanner over him, desperately looking
for some physical reason, some poison, some virus, some
evidence of mind control - hell anything to explain the change in
him.
"It doesn't show up on a medscanner, y'know." The vomiting had
sobered him slightly but his anger was unabated.
"What doesn't?"
"O.F.T.A.A."
McCoy blinked, he'd never heard of....
"Because that's what ails me Doctor, O.F.T.A.A. One fucking
thing after another." He wiped his foul-tasting mouth on the back
of his hand. "You know what really pisses me off? I had it all
under control, I had it all held tight and battened down." He held
out a clenched fist, the nails digging into his palm. "All that pain
and all that loss and all that dying and d'you know what finally
finished me ? That godawful song."
McCoy winced as Kirk looked through them, his eyes huge and
unseeing. "It was playing in a shop as we walked past," he said
softly. "She took my hand and said, 'Whatever it is - let me help'."
He swallowed hard and looked at them. "Don't you remember?"
and he began to sing the old tune Calcroft had sung aboard the cutter.
Good Night Sweetheart, tho' I'm not beside you
Good Night Sweetheart, still my love will guide you
Dreams enfold you, in each one I'll hold you
Good Night Sweetheart .....
His voice broke before he could finish the sweet, silly, trivial little
song and, when he spoke again, the harshness seemed all the
uglier for the contrast with his singing.
"Strange how potent cheap music is," he quoted savagely.
"Whassamatter? Didn't you know I could sing? Well, I can't - not
sober anyway. Good ol' George saw to that. He didn't want a
fucking choirboy for a son, nosiree! Good ol' George wanted a
son in his own image - a plain talking, hard-fighting, two-fisted,
foul-mouthed, narrow-minded, emotionally-crippled sonovabitch."
He laughed, a grating, mirthless noise. "And lo and behold, that's
exactly what he got. Ironic isn't it - I've hated him all my life and
now I find out I've turned into him behind my own back."
McCoy had no idea what to say to all this. He couldn't think,
things were happening too fast, there was too much to take in.
He had always thought of Jim as one of Fortune's favoured
children; a man who had strolled through life, his way made easy
by all the gifts that fate had bestowed on him with such a
generous hand. The magnitude of his mistake shook his
fast-dwindling faith in their friendship still further. "Jim, I ...
You're not ..."
Kirk shot off the bunk and grabbed the Doctor by the front of his
tunic. "I loved her and I killed her - what sort of man does that
dry-eyed? I buried my only brother and couldn't cry for him -
what does that make me?" He shook McCoy roughly. "Now do
you see why there's nothing left? Now do you see why I'm
running away?"
The horrible thing, thought McCoy, was that he did understand.
He couldn't blame Jim for refusing to take up any more burdens,
heaven knew he'd carried a hell of a lot for a hell of a long time
- but despite that understanding he found himself still clinging to
the hope that, somehow, Jim would come through for them yet
again.
Something of this must have shown in his face because Kirk
pushed him aside with a weary obscenity and, helping himself
to another bottle of liquor, swung himself up onto an upper berth.
Uhura, watching from her seat on the floor at the other side of the
cell, thought how odd it was that the physical grace of his body
had remained even while his personality seemed to be
disintegrating.
Kirk drank deep and after a few minutes began to sing again. His
self-proclaimed inability to hold a tune in a magnetic bottle had
been a standing joke aboard the Enterprise, even though nobody
could actually remember having heard him sing, so the mere
existence of this true, sweet, slightly husky tenor was another
shock, especially to the musicians amongst them.
Uhura in particular found it difficult to conceive of anything which
would make somebody deny that he could sing as well as this, and
she realised she didn't want to know what George Kirk had done
to his son that had made him do so.
McCoy was finding it difficult to think at all, the song kept
tangling itself in his thoughts, distracting him. He didn't recognise
it but the frequently repeated and maddeningly memorable chorus
soon burnt itself into his brain and after a few repetitions he
found it impossible to forget.
"I call upon Thee,
Hear Thou my call
Come Strong Deliverer,
Lord of us all."
He joined the others in an angry huddle at the far end of the cell.
"Can't anybody think of something we can do? I'm no engineer
but even I can tell things are getting worse out there. The lighting
has failed on some of the decks and I think air recyc. went out for
a few minutes - they were running round like idiots, cussing up
a storm before they got it to run again." He glanced over at Kirk.
"We might all die in this godforsaken rat trap and he lies there
singing hymns."
Uhura leaned over and gripped his arm. "That's not a Terran
hymn," she said softly. "That's the Rigellian 'Hledaif Taifamni' -
'The Song of They Who Were Defeated'." Her hand tightened.
"Doctor, the 'Strong Deliverer' is death."
He stared at her, appalled, as guilt rose in a huge, black tide and
swallowed him whole. *Oh god, how much of this is my fault?*
Kirk was a strong man, McCoy had seen him cope with trauma
and loss before. *Could he have coped if I'd....* He stumbled away
from them to one of the bunks and hid his face in his hands.
The rest of them took up seats on the floor or on bunks as far
from Kirk as they could and Spock finally worked out the
emotional dynamics of their situation. Because the prisoners could
not see their jailers, because they had no way to fight back and no
way they could escape, all the hatred and frustration they were
feeling were being transferred to the Captain who made the perfect
scapegoat - visible, available and, in his current condition,
all-too-easy to hate.
He glanced up to where Kirk sat, dominating the room by position
and sheer force of personality and wondered what he would do
next? He accessed the secondary memory level and reviewed the
incident to date. He himself had escaped relatively lightly from
the Captain's hostility, and although Kirk's freedom to chose his
"victim" would no doubt be constrained by the reactions of their
fellow prisoners, it seemed likely that Spock himself would be
soon be a target. He adjusted his shields appropriately.
Hendricks leaned forwards. "What does he mean - he loved her
and he killed her?" Spock looked warily at McCoy but to his
surprise the Doctor nodded his consent.
"Tell him Spock, the last thing we need in this situation is secrets
between us all." So Spock outlined the essentials of the terrible
history of the woman who had to die so that history could regain
its proper course.
They all thought he had pitched his voice low enough so that it
would not carry as far as Kirk but he must have miscalculated
because, as the story ended, Kirk called out from his bunk,
"You missed out all the good bits, Spock."
"Captain?" Courteous, enquiring, they might still have been on
the Bridge of the Enterprise.
"She was a good woman, Spock. She was generous and gifted
and full of hope for the future and I never told her how right she
was. I never told her who I was, she never even called me by my
first name." His voice was rising, the words tumbling over each
other. "I lived in that ugly room, in that ugly house in that ugly
time for three weeks knowing she was going to die, knowing I
had to let it happen, knowing I had to hope that I could make it
happen so that billions of people could live their lives as they were
meant to."
"I had to meet her every day and pretend nothing was wrong. I
'courted' her, like a man of her own time because she was entitled
to that happiness at least and I had to listen to her make plans for
a future that neither of us would know. I lied to her constantly
and consistently with all the skill I could muster and when the time
came I killed her AND SHE KNEW IT! The last words were
shouted and his head began to thrash from side to side as though
he were trying physically to shake the memories away. Galvanised
by that much distress, McCoy forgot the threats and the warnings
and, grabbing his hypo, made to thrust his friend into
unconsciousness.
Kirk recoiled, scrambling up the bunk away from him. "Keep off," he
shouted. "Do you *want* me to hurt you?" And at that moment
McCoy was transported away from them again.
Uhura sat on the floor, her back to the wall, her eyes burning, pity
like a cold stone in her chest. She was remembering the look in
Kirk's eyes as he reappeared on the Guardian planet, a terrible
expression compounded of stunned horror and bitter self-loathing
as he stood, meeting nobody's gaze, seeming to look inwards
at something that gave him no satisfaction and immense pain.
Now it all made sense and, for one brief, selfish moment, she wished
with all her heart that she did not know.
Ensign Malik on the other hand was angrier than he could ever
remember being in his entire life. It was difficult to recall that,
only a few days ago, he'd actually thought himself lucky to be
getting a chance to speak to the famous Captain Kirk and the
crew of the Enterprise. He'd even let himself daydream that
maybe, just maybe, if he impressed Kirk with his attention to duty
and his willingness to learn, there might even be an outside
chance of a transfer to the Enterprise.
All that had vanished as though it had never existed, leaving
nothing but hatred and the chill fear of death. He was only 21, he
was on his first deep space mission and, although intellectually he
had known that he might die in space, with all the unconscious
arrogance of youth he had never truly thought it would happen to
him. Oh he'd had fantasies, the same fantasies every cadet had -
the glorious death, the heroic rescue, the last stand; but not this
- never this - this mean, squalid, terrifying helplessness.
Kirk caught his eye and the look cut like a knife. It seemed to the
ensign as though his every thought, fear and failing had been
instantly read and known and despised.
"Not what you expected is it, sonny?" Said Kirk with patently
insincere compassion, "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori -
is that what you want?" He began to sing, exaggerating the
diction, parodying the sentiment, making a genuinely affecting
song a ridiculous caricature of itself.
"I carried my sword willingly, I held our banner high
I marched into the darkness, I was not afraid to die
For because our cause was righteous I'd be lifted to the sky
Where I'd see victory lighting up the mo-orning
Where I'd see victory lighting up the day."
"Well, it isn't like that, sonny. The truth is, life is full of
pointless death and painful dying, you just found out earlier than
most people, that's all."
Ensign Malik looked at the drink-sodden husk of a man he'd once
admired and his hatred was even fiercer than his fear.
Kirk looked at the ensign, at the painfully young face, its dark
skin flushed with anger and he swore foully. He began to sing
again and this time his voice was raucous and aggressive. The
song was 'Dead Men's Boots' the most famous soldiers' song to
come out of the Centauri city wars.
"We all marched out at dawn
To the sound of drum and horn
The lies they told us ringing in our ears
By the time the night had come
You couldn't hear the drum
For the screaming and the sound of women's tears.
O Mother dear, I don't want to be a soldier
I'm tired of the dying
And the sound of grown men crying.
O Mother dear, I don't want to be soldier
So I'm going to sit here drinking
Until this bar is dry."
Kirk's voice rang out, loud, confident and full of a rage that was
frightening in its intensity. The slight huskiness disappeared as he
sang and his voice filled the cell making it impossible to think
constructively or hold a conversation without shouting and
gradually they all fell silent.
When McCoy reappeared half an hour later, exhausted and
distressed by the death of one of his patients, he found Kirk still
singing. He suspected that only the nasty look in the Captain's eyes,
and the fact that the bladed scalpel was tucked into the top of his
boot, prevented his shipmates from physically shutting him up. The
hatred in the cell was so intense he could almost taste it. He
wandered over to where Spock sat.
"Do you have anything to report, Doctor?"
He shrugged, not knowing where to start. "It's bad out there
Spock. My last patient was a knife wound. They're starting to
fight amongst themselves. It's like the mirror universe, they're
fighting for power, and now they're in such a mess, allegiances
are breaking down and people are starting to jockey for position."
He dropped down on the bunk next to the Vulcan and shook
his head. "I can't understand how anyone can live like that."
Kirk stopped singing. "Oh, I can, Doctor. At least that way you
only have yourself to look out for. I'm just beginning to realise how
much freedom comes from not giving a damn about anyone
else." He smiled dangerously. "In fact, in survival terms one might
even call it logical." Spock refused to rise to the bait.
"And of course there are other reasons." He looked at Uhura
and for the first time ever she was afraid of him. She had always
known that he found her attractive, just as she had always
known that he would never do anything about it, but this frankly
appraising look spoke of an entirely different man, one who might
just have grown tired of denying himself what he wanted.
Kirk looked over at Spock and the anger that was so close to the
surface boiled over. "Stop looking at me like that, you smug
Vulcan bastard! You think you're so fucking superior, don't you?
While the rest of us sweat and thrash around in the muck and mess
of life you just sail right over the top and heaven help any poor devil
who goes under when you're around, because you won't lift a finger to
help, will you?" Hazel eyes caught and held the Vulcan's. "Did you?"
He rolled up into a sitting position and sat, poised and predatory,
on the edge of the bunk. "Come on, Commander, you could see I
was in trouble. What stopped you? Afraid of getting your hands
dirty or still ashamed of feeling friendship for me?"
Spock stared at him, horrified by the sudden realisation that for
Kirk any help, no matter how clumsy, would have been better
than the silence and privacy that had been his only offering. He
had persuaded himself that human grief was best dealt with by
other humans, and that his own reluctance to involve himself
directly was merely a recognition of that fact; a truly contemptible
lie for his real motive had been much less worthy. He forced
himself to recognise that motive for what it was - fear, fear of
emotion, both his friend's and his own.
He bowed his head. "You are correct," he said softly. "I ask
pardon."
"Too late," said Kirk and there was an ice-cold triumph in his
voice. Spock dropped his head still lower until his face was
hidden, a gesture so nakedly emotional he might just as well have
wept in front of them.
This last exchange broke McCoy's fragile hold on hope. Kirk
had paraded his best friend's closely guarded feelings before their
friends and their enemies, a thing he had thought not even torture
could make him do. Truly they were all lost now.
Even the strangers seemed to realise the enormity of what had
happened. Stone looked up at him, contempt written all over his
face. "My one consolation in all this, Kirk, is that you'll never set
foot on another starship."
Kirk lifted his eyes from Spock's bent head and the Commodore
flinched. "Teddy, Teddy, Teddy! You still don't get it, do you? I
don't want to - I've had enough. If we ever reach a Federation port
you won't see me for plasma. I can be out of sight in ten minutes
and untraceable within an hour. That's one of the advantages of
a childhood in the gutter, you know where to find the gutter rats."
He tilted his head and looked at Stone, judging him and finding him
wanting. "C'mon Teddy, you've always thought I was a jumped-up
boy wonder, all flash and no foundations. Admit it, you're just a
leettle bit glad you've been proved right."
Stone flared up, the accuracy of the comment almost as stinging
as the contempt in Kirk's voice. "Don't attribute your drunken
fantasies to me."
Kirk's gaze, hot and malignant, swept through the cell. "Oh
Teddy," he said reproachfully. "You don't think I don't know
exactly what you're all thinking, do you? I can read the lot of you
like a book: McCoy's wondering how much of this is his fault;
Uhura is worried about showing fear; Riccordi is worried about
his immortal soul; Schneider is worried about his girl; Calcroft's
thinking 'like father - like son'; little Malik's still young enough to
think it'd be easier if he was dying *for* something and Hendricks
thinks it'd be easier to die fighting. Spock over there is trying
to persuade himself that he doesn't feel anything at all and
Mr Scott... "A distinctly dangerous look came into his eyes.
"Mr Scott is wondering if the fact that I can jury-rig a replicator
means that I could also jury-rig the engines."
Scott stared at him aghast. *Surely he wasn't going to ... *
Kirk patted his hands together lightly, in a familiar gesture that
seemed obscenely out of place. "Well, let me see now. Lighting
failures, no warp drive, intermittent life support outages but the
tractor and transporter are still working, I'd say what we've got
here is problems with the secondary power couplings, probably
in the A/N circuits." Suddenly he flung back his head and shouted,
"And if you want any more - transport me out. Quick - before the
odour of sanctity in here makes me puke."
"Shut up ye fool!" Infuriated by this betrayal, Scott jumped up
from his bunk just as they all heard the hum of the transporter and
Kirk vanished.
There was dead silence until Stone spoke.
"Can he fix the engines?"
Nobody answered at first; they were all too stunned. "I've never
seen anybody do that to a replicator," said Riccordi eventually,
"and he did say he was an Engineering major."
McCoy shrugged. "I thought he majored in History." He had
thought he knew Kirk; now he didn't know what the hell he knew.
Spock had retired to sit on his heels on the floor, apparently
meditating, but he raised his head at this. "Double major, Doctor,"
he said. Malik blinked, he hadn't even known that was possible.
Scott whistled. "Well, that explains how he knew about the cold
start for the warp drive. It's no what you'd call common knowledge
outside engineering circles."
"Can he fix the engines?" Stone insisted.
Scott was not about to confirm Kirk's shockingly accurate
diagnosis, so he smothered the retort that almost escaped him and
answered reasonably, "That depends on what's wrong wi' 'em."
*How the hell had this man ever made commodore?* However
they all deserved to know at least part of the truth. "But if he did
study engineering there's an awfu' lot of things he could fix and
a lot more he could try that'll get us all blown tae smithereens."
Nobody spoke after that - there was nothing more to be said.
They all knew the only reason they had been brought aboard was
that the pirates had hoped one of them would do what Kirk had
just done, turn traitor and fix the engines. Apart from McCoy, the
pirates had no need of the rest of them and, as soon as the engines
were repaired, they would be disposed of, probably straight into
space.
They sat and waited. Twice the lights flickered and went out
briefly. After about ten minutes the silence deepened as the air
circulation cut out.
Uhura wanted to say goodbye to her shipmates but dare not. If
she spoke at all she knew she would break down completely so
she sat, arms folded, shivering slightly. Engineer Riccordi
produced a set of rosary beads from round his neck and got
down on his knees in a corner, after almost three years of
serving with him Calcroft hadn't known he was Catholic,
something she realised Kirk had picked up in less than a week.
Suddenly, after about twenty minutes, Spock and Scott lifted
their heads at the same moment and looked at one another. "The
warp drive has just been fired," said Spock. Nobody else could
feel anything but nobody doubted them.
Scott shook his head sadly. "I never thought he'd do it." His eyes
met Engineer Riccordi's and he smiled, tiredly. "Say one for me,
lad." They sat for long minutes in silence then Scott got to his
feet, went over to Uhura and kissed her cheek. "Goodbye lassie,
it's been a pleasure knowing ye." He turned towards McCoy,
holding out a hand and at that moment they felt the familiar tingle
of transportation. This was it.
They rematerialised in a transporter room they did not recognise,
manned by somebody they most certainly did.
He smiled at them, the huge, familiar, unclouded grin apparently
unaffected by a split lip and incipient black eye which combined
to give him a distinctly rakish look. The makeshift respirator
dangled round his neck. "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,
anybody?" he enquired blandly.
They all stared at him blankly for what seemed like an age, and
then someone lauged in delight and they surged off the transporter
pads towards him, swept forward by shock and somewhat
hysterical relief. Relief not only at their rescue, but also at the
fact that it was Kirk who had rescued them, a familiar pattern
restored, their original faith in him vindicated.
As they crowded round him, shaking his hand and slapping him
on the back, the old relationships reasserted themselves effortlessly,
and they abandoned their recent hatred of him thankfully and
completely. The universe had regained its familiar shape - it had
all been another trick, a role performed with consummate skill, a lie.
Only McCoy stood apart, clutching at the transporter console as
the room seemed to tilt and sway. Kirk, looking over Stone's
shoulder, saw McCoy go white and pushed his way quickly through
them all to where the doctor stood.
"Jim, I'm so sorry!" He was shaking now and close to tears and he
wasn't even sure what he was apologising for, the mistake with the
cordrazine, the way he had failed his friend afterwards or the way
he had fallen for the trick in the cell.
Whatever it was, it did not seem to matter because Kirk simply
grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.
"It doesn't matter, Bones" he said firmly, shaking him gently.
"None of that matters now. It's all over." And McCoy looked
straight back at him and saw that it was.
When they turned back to their shipmates, both a little
embarrassed, Stone asked the 64,000 credit question. "Where
are the pirates?"
Kirk shrugged modestly, his eyes dancing. "In the Brig, where
else? They had a perfectly good gas bomb just going to waste.
It seemed a shame not to use it."
He nudged McCoy. "You'd better go look at your patients, Bones.
I tried to isolate Sickbay but the circuits on this ship make a plate
of spaghetti look coherent."
"All right, all right, I'm going, but I want to see you down there
sometime in the next hour." McCoy scowled at his friend, trying
unsuccessfully to hide an enormous grin. "And don't give me any
of that 'I'm fine' crap, I've seen the readout on that moonshine,
you haven't. Besides you've gone and messed up your blasted
hand again."
They all looked at the bruised and bleeding knuckles and Kirk
shrugged again. "One of them didn't mind the gas - I had to slug
him." He made shooing movements. "Come along people we've
got a ship to secure. Scotty, you and Riccordi better go check
what I've done to the engines. Uhura will you see if you can get
the comms rig working, please, the Bridge is down there," he
pointed. "Mr Spock, if you would care to accompany her, I'm
sure Commander Calcroft and the Commodore would like to see
if their ship is still with us. I couldn't get the sensors to show me
a damn thing, but no doubt a few kind words from you and the
computer will be eating out of your hand."
Mr Spock, recognising a feed when he heard one, obligingly
provided the punchline. "I sincerely trust it will do no such thing,
Captain."
They all scattered happily, leaving Kirk, the redshirts
and a frankly adoring Ensign Malik to check through the ship for
stragglers, wounded and something decent to eat.
Although it normally took a tractor beam and six strong men to
drag him down to Sickbay for treatment, Kirk turned up more or
less on time and let McCoy fuss over him, accepting the de-tox
shot, and for once rather enjoying the familiar grumbling as the
Doctor bent over his injured hand. "I sometimes wonder why
the hell I bother treating you - this is the second time I've had to
do this today. If you can't remember all that fancy, unarmed
combat they taught you at the Academy, the least you could do
is remember to throw a left once in a while."
Kirk grinned and then winced, as the cut in his lip re-opened. "I'll
try to bear it in mind."
"Here, let me have a look at that." Gentle hands tilted his face up
to the light. "It's nothing, I'll seal it so it doesn't keep splitting
open. That shiner's better left alone 'til we get somewhere with
better facilities." He worked for a moment in silence.
"Co' on 'ones, ou' i i."
"What?" MCoy finished and started to put his instruments away,
suddenly shy, unwilling to jeopardise this new/old rapport.
"I said 'come on Bones, out with it'."
When McCoy turned back, he saw Kirk looking at him with
amused affection. "Did you really have to hit him, Jim?" he said.
The smile faded. "Yes." It was his only real regret about the whole
business. He had needed something to distress all three of them
before the 'performance' began; he just wished he'd had time to
think of something else. "Is he all right? I mean I didn't do any
real damage, did I?"
McCoy shook his head. "Take more'n your dainty little fist to
make a permanent dent in that Vulcan hide." He paused and then
made himself continue. "It's not his outside that worries me."
Kirk got to his feet, pulling faces to test the sealing. "Don't worry,
I'll talk to him." He bent down and looked up into the downcast
face from below, forcing a reluctant smile with the warmth of his
own. "I will talk to him but you needn't worry, he understands."
MCoy nodded, willing to accept that Kirk was the expert where
Spock was concerned. He summoned up his courage. "We're
going to have to talk too. You know that, don't you?"
Kirk smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, I know -- but
not now, Bones. We're *both* too tired right now. When we get
to Memory Alpha. We'll sort it all out there." MCoy looked at him,
still tired but still labouring for them all. Then, because
Jim's word had always been good, he let him go.
He wasn't naive enough to think that his friend had got over his
grief. Grief like that was a long, long journey, but at least the
deadlock had been broken; partly by the mere fact of action,
Kirk was always at his best when something difficult was
required of him and partly, McCoy thought, by the catharsis
of the performance. Kirk had obviously released a lot of
emotional steam in that cell and, although his journey would
still be long and hard, at least he was on the right track now.
*And if he thinks he's ever going to keep his troubles to himself
in future, he's in for a nasty shock"* thought McCoy, as he went
to check on his (distinctly ungrateful) patients.
The Commodore's cutter was still in tow and it made sense for
Stone and his crew to go back to their own ship and for the
Enterprise crew to take the Orion ship on to base. Stone left in a
flurry of congratulations and a promise to nominate Kirk for an
actor's award in the Tri-V Oscars.
"You certainly had me fooled - if it hadn't been for Mr Spock I
think I'd have broken your neck," he said, with what Kirk
privately felt was rather too much enthusiasm.
The Commodore disappeared back to his own ship, and Kirk left
the Transporter Room, Spock in his usual position behind his
right shoulder. "I still say he thinks I'm a jumped-up boy wonder,"
he said ruefully.
"I agree."
Kirk stopped dead and shot Spock a sideways look as the Vulcan
came up beside him. It was a familiar expression, the mock-scowl
that said Kirk knew he was being teased but was willing to play
along. Part of Spock escaped his formidable controls and rejoiced.
"It's no use smirking at me, Spock. I'm not going to ask you whether
you're agreeing with my assessment of Stone or with his of me."
Spock lifted an offended eye-brow. "Vulcans never smirk," he said
repressively and for once let himself feel the ripple of pleasure as
Kirk threw back his head and laughed.
They stood for a moment, enjoying the sensation of life returning
to normal, then Kirk leaned over and brushed Spock's shoulder
with his own, the lightest of touches, his need to express his
affection pared down to a level acceptable to Vulcan sensibilities.
"I really am sorry about what I said back there," he said quietly.
Spook shook his head. "There is no need for apologies, Jim. You
did nothing that was not necessary. Even if I had been distressed,
it would be most illogical of me to complain about that which saved
all our lives."
"You know that wasn't entirely why I did it."
Spock smiled, although his face did not move. He wondered how
many beings would insist on accepting blame for their motives
as well as their actions. "I know," he said.
Kirk looked at him narrowly and after a few seconds nodded,
apparently satisfied.
"And you, Jim. Are you all right now?"
The manifest sincerity of the question demanded and received an
honest answer. "No," said Kirk. "No, I'm not." He rubbed at his eyes
tiredly, and for a second the burden he bore was written plainly on his
face. Then he smiled slightly and shrugged. "But I will be -- or at
least as all right as anyone gets round here."
He glanced towards the bridge. "Look, Spock, don't be surprised if
some of the others are less forgiving that you were. I said some
pretty nasty things in that cell - at the moment they're all too
relieved to remember. Once the relief wears off, things might get
a little tense. Just bear with them, okay?"
He half expected Spock to make some crack about the illogicality
of human responses, but the Vulcan merely nodded, and Kirk
gestured down the corridor. "Come along Mr Spock," he said.
"We've got a ship to run."
It was several hours before they all had time to discuss what had
happened, hours during which repairs were consolidated, meals
eaten, injured treated and rest periods taken but eventually the
Enterprise officers gathered on the pirate Bridge, the only
undamaged room big enough to hold them all, for a combination
de-brief and celebration picnic.
Hendricks and Schneider were watching the pirates, both the
injured in their beds and the uninjured in the Brig. Constant
vigilance was necessary, not so much to prevent escape, but to
prevent them killing each other.
Kirk appeared to be more or less back to normal, the familiar
bounce in his step had reappeared, along with an apparently
inexhaustible supply of truly terrible Long John Silver jokes. He
sat in the Orion captain's chair, looking tired but calm, eating an
enormous sandwich and drinking a much refined version of
'human intoxicant'; a liquid which tasted remarkably like red wine
and which, he suspected, Mr Scott had concocted solely to prove
that, anything the Captain could do, the Engineer could do better.
Uhura was perched on the edge of the enormous weapons console
that dominated the room, eating a mallasia fruit with a spoon.
"I have to hand it to you, sir, that was an extraordinary performance."
He shrugged as he finished his sandwich and licked the sauce off
his fingers. "Not really, I've got more than my fair share of
self-pity I just cranked it up and let it run." He glanced over at
Spock. "I'm afraid some of it turned out nastier than I expected."
He thought back to the apology he had made earlier. There had been
something oddly formal about the exchange, as though the
apology and Spock's grave acceptance were part of an ancient
ritual. A ritual whose participants continued to execute the old
rites even though their original purpose was long forgotten.
He remembered the other times he had been forced to bruise
his friend's supposedly non-existent feelings. Each time he had
made his apologies, and each time Spock had insisted on his own
lack of resentment. The difference was that this time Kirk
believed him, perhaps he was finally beginning to understand his
Vulcan friend.
For the first time he was sure, not only that Spock understood
why he had acted as he had, but also that his understanding of
itself precluded resentment. There had been no choice and
therefore resentment would be not only deplorably emotional
but also illogical.. Spock had feelings and those feelings could be
hurt, but not like this, not by doing something so necessary.
Briefly he wondered at the strength of his own conviction and
then set the question aside with a mental shrug - some things were
too precious to question, better just to live with them and thank
your deity that you could.
He grinned at Uhura. "Good thing it didn't last any longer - I was
running out of miserable songs."
Mr Scott, however, was struggling with his conscience. He
suspected that the Captain would not want him to reveal what
he knew but he could not let them all live in this fools' paradise.
If his suspicions were correct, they ought to be told what had
been done for them.
He looked up from his glass. "Aye but that's no the whole story,
is it Captain?" Kirk looked at him warily. "We'd not been free more
than a few minutes when Hendricks asked me to have a look at
the surveillance equipment in the Brig. The transporter sensors
were working but nothing much else was, video was faint
an' intermittent and there was no audio at all. By the look of
things it'd bin that way for months. Don't worry, I've fixed it now,
no one will ever know that there was no way those pirates could
have heard what you was up to. Which leaves me wondering how
the bloody hell, begging your pardon, you did manage to
communicate wi 'em."
Kirk scrubbed a hand over his face, he had hoped to avoid this
particular explanation. He looked down into his glass and took a
deep breath. "It's quite simple, one of the pirates was an empath.
Mr Spock felt the first contact while we were still aboard the cutter
and, while he could screen what he allowed the empath to pick up,
the rest of us couldn't. Luckily she was an empath not a telepath,
so she couldn't pick up what we were thinking but emotions,
especially big, noisy, violent ones, she could read like a viewscreen
- so I gave her a bellyful. That's why I had to get so nasty, the
pirates weren't listening to our words they were tapping into our
feelings. You had to hate me, you genuinely had to believe that I
might join them; once you all believed it the empath believed it
too." He spread his hands in a familiar 'there you are' gesture,
willing them to let the matter rest.
But they couldn't. The magnitude of the performance had begun
to dawn on them. He'd deliberately set out to hurt them. He knew
their weak spots and he had played on them like a master
musician; McCoy's guilt, Uhura's fears, Stone's resentment,
Scott's horror at the prostitution of engineering skills, the red
shirts' trust in their Captain, even Spock's unVulcan love for his
friend. He'd attacked each one of them at their weakest point and
for a moment Uhura was chilled by the ruthlessness of it all. Even
comparative strangers like the cutter's crew had been expertly
dissected and used.
It explained so much - the alcohol consumed deliberately as a
depressant, the singing, because music would amplify emotions,
his and theirs, and most of all it explained why he had revealed so
much of himself. All the ugly details they had been so glad to
accept as fictions must all be true, and he had poured salt into
wounds already raw, desperate to maintain a steady stream of his
own pain and alienation to feed the empath. Her anger died as
she realised that, if he had been ruthless with them, he had been
a thousand times more ruthless with himself.
She glanced over at Spock, he had been part of it all too. During
all that time in the Brig he must have been revealing at least some
of his emotions to the empath, a deeply repugnant action to any
Vulcan; but what was more, and what must have been even harder
for him, he had been forced to help his friend deliberately hurt
himself. She looked at both men and saw their continuing ease
with one another and wondered how many friendships held that
much trust and mutual understanding.
McCoy too had been thinking. "Just a minute, just a damn minute
here," he said, fear as usual making him angry. "If our emotions
had to be real, so did yours," he stared at his friend, appalled.
"My god, Jim. Just how true was all that?"
Kirk sat back so that his face was hidden by the soft shadows of
the Bridge and looked at them.
These were his friends, the best friends a man could ever have.
They would not think any less of him if he confessed to a few
human 'weaknesses'; to grief; to regret; to a loneliness sometimes
so intense it threatened to crush him; to a whole raft of incoherent
fears and angers and resentments which he had thrown onto the
great bonfire of his rage and grief, deliberately stoking the flames
until the heat of the blaze had convinced the empath. It had been
a dangerous game, control had been impossible for fear of detection
by the empath, and he wondered if even Spock realised how close
his Captain had come to being consumed by the flames himself.
It would have *so* easy to let go.
He looked down at his bruised knuckles and realised that, even
now, he could not bring himself to share any of this. He knew
that he would be a happier man, perhaps even a better man, if he
could but he could not. There was a long pause and when he
looked up his grin was crooked, his eyes as impenetrable as any
Vulcan's. He shrugged. "It was as true as it needed to be,
Doctor," he said quietly. "As true as it needed to be."
THE END