Author's Note: This begins very closely after the end of the episode "The Galileo Seven," and is meant to continue the story and bring to what I felt was an emotional conclusion as well as a plot-related one. The title comes from a line from Tennyson's "Ulysses"—"That which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts."

Disclaimer: Star Trek and all characters therein were created by Gene Roddenberry and the copyrights belong to Paramount and therefore Viacom. I couldn't possibly own them without huge amounts of money or time travel, neither of which I have yet managed to attain.

One Equal Temper

One

It probably hadn't been the wisest career decision to tell the High Commissioner exactly where to shove it, but he wouldn't be the first member of the top brass that Captain Kirk had managed to . . . severely annoy, and Kirk didn't regret a word of the conversation. It wasn't as if he could have offended the man any more than he already had by practically ordering him off his bridge, and Kirk had other friends at High Command.

Either way, he had not left High Commissioner Ferris with a shining impression of Starfleet's youngest captain. He was having a hard time caring. It was more than worth it to have the crew of the Galileo back and safe. Or at least mostly back and safe. He regretted the deaths of Latimer and Gaetano, of course; he regretted every life lost on his ship, but he felt a vague guilt at how completely his relief at having the others back overshadowed that regret. He hadn't dared to hope for that much for what seemed like an eternity or two by this point, despite his determination not to give up on his people. Spock, Bones, Scotty—and Ferris had just expected him to turn his back and write them off? What had he thought Kirk would do? No captain relished the idea of having to replace more than half his senior officers, and there was no way Kirk'd been about to sit back and take it the way Ferris had wanted.

It would be a relief when Ferris was off his ship and onto his next destination, playing intimidation games with some other hapless Starfleet captain. The man was a power-crazed egomaniac.

Kirk realized his opinion wasn't quite fair (he was fairly sure the commissioner had a similar opinion of him, for one thing) and probably colored quite a bit by his own feelings about the narrowly averted disaster. So be it. That didn't make him like Ferris any better. Thankfully, the latest confrontation between them was over, at least for the time being. Kirk had no doubt he'd be given an opportunity to hear another public airing of the commissioner's opinions of himself and the ship he ran at least once more before they put in at Makus III, but for now he was determined to turn his attention to more important matters, like the welfare of his crew.

"Bones?" he asked as he made his way into sickbay. His Chief Medical Officer had requested his presence there shortly after he'd dismissed his newly rescued officers from the bridge to get some rest. He'd had to argue with Spock to get him to actually leave his station. He frowned at the memory. There was trouble there, and it bothered him that he hadn't been able to get a better read on his first officer's reactions to the disastrous outcome of his first command. He'd tried to tease an admission out of him with his playful comments on the bridge about Spock's last strategy, but his tactic had been far from successful, and now he worried that the attempt might have hurt more than it had helped. He thought he understood his first officer and friend fairly well by now, but sometimes the Vulcan still left him utterly baffled, guessing blindly in an attempt to figure out what was going on in Spock's head. He knew Spock wasn't as emotionless as he liked to claim, but it was sometimes hard to figure out if Kirk should call him on it or not. He was better used to dealing with emotions when they were all too present than the opposite, in himself and in his crew. He sighed. Well. At least Spock didn't intimidate the hell out of him anymore, like he had when he'd first come aboard as captain and found himself face to face with Chris Pike's famous Vulcan science officer. Progress, right? "Bones?" he said again. Where was he? He'd come all the way down from the bridge because McCoy had said he wanted to talk in private; the least the doctor could do was actually show up.

But there he was, coming out of his office, grinning widely. "Nothing like crash-landing on a rocky planet covered in spear-wielding apemen to help you appreciate the conditions back home," McCoy said, satisfaction overlaying the still slightly shaky relief in his voice.

Kirk smiled in return as he finished making his way into the room, the door swishing shut behind him. It was good to have his ship's doctor back on board. "I'll remind you of that the next time you complain about the facilities," he said, "or about having to operate on bizarre alien species. At least there aren't any apemen aboard."

"I don't know," McCoy returned. "Sometimes I wonder about some of those security boys."

Kirk laughed. Harsh as it was, McCoy did have a point. He leaned back against one of the biobeds. "You wanted to talk to me about something."

McCoy sobered, his face creasing into a frown. "I did," he said. "Jim—" he hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind to say his piece and be done with it. "Speaking of those bizarre alien species," he said, stopped, took a deep breath. "I'm worried about Spock," he finished in a rush then, like that had unlocked everything he'd wanted to say, continued on without so much as a breath. "It was a helluva first command experience for anyone, and we all just made it harder on him. Like it wasn't already bad enough. He was trying to command the only way he knew how, and he didn't do a half bad job, but we all took it like he was asking us to jump into volcanoes because he didn't say please and thank you. Boma was way outta line. Heck, I was practically as bad." He sighed. "Now, could be I'm just projecting, or that I'm feeling guilty about my part in encouraging what was pretty damn blatant insubordination so I'm overreactin' now it's all over and the pressure's off, but I had to say something. We questioned pretty much every decision he made, and, well, we're here now, aren't we? At least most of us." He shrugged and perched his hands on his hips. "Plus I'd like to get him in here and take a look at that leg of his. He had a pretty close run-in with a rock tossed by an apeman himself."

Kirk frowned. He hadn't expected McCoy's words to so closely mirror his own thoughts and concerns. Spock hadn't mentioned anything about an injury, though now that he thought about it, he seemed to remember that the Vulcan had been limping slightly on the bridge. "Well, I can take care of that easily enough," he said a little absently, his thoughts focusing in on McCoy's earlier words. "You said Lieutenant Boma was insubordinate?" His mind went back to Lieutenant Stiles's attitude during the Romulan incident not too long ago. He hoped this wasn't more of the same. Narrow-minded bigotry had no place on a Federation starship, especially not toward an experienced officer who had proven his competence and loyalty many times over.

"Rude, disrespectful, the whole shebang," McCoy said and shrugged. "I'd suggest an official reprimand, Jim."

Kirk clasped his hands as his worry kicked up a notch. How big of a mess was he going to have to clean up? An official reprimand—damn it. "And you, Bones?" he asked, studying McCoy's face. "You said you were almost as bad."

McCoy flushed, but shrugged. "I can at least recognize that he saved our behinds out there," he said bluntly. "I'm not so sure about Boma's ability to see that. But you'll have to do whatever you feel's appropriate."

Kirk gave a slight smile. "I'm sure it won't come to that in your case," he said. "Recognizing your mistakes is the first step to fixing them, after all." And in the future, he'd be thinking twice about fulfilling his orders to study quasars—a perfect example of just that. His officers weren't the only ones who'd made mistakes this time around. In the end, it was his own recklessness in ordering the mission in the first place that had cost the lives of two members of his crew, as well as Ensign O'Neill of the search party, and had almost killed five more, including his two closest friends. He looked down at his hands. "All the details, complimentary or otherwise, will be in your report?"

"Sure will, Jim."

Kirk shrugged. "Then that's good enough for me. I'll take your recommendation into consideration." He wondered if Spock were in his quarters now. They were both signed off the bridge for their shifts today, and Bones had just given him the perfect logical excuse to intrude on his first officer's private time. Besides, the basic rule of damage control was the faster, the better. True in just about every case. "You're all right?" he asked, glancing back up.

"Me?" McCoy sounded vaguely surprised. "I'm fine. A little shook up still, but pretty much as good as new."

"Well, good." Kirk pushed himself back up to his feet and turned to clap a hand to the doctor's shoulders. "Good to have you back, Bones," he said, and despite his other concerns his smile felt wide and genuine. Whatever the fallout from this, the worry was infinitely preferable to the sort he'd suffered for the last several days, not even knowing if his officers were alive, if there was any point to looking for them at all.

"Good to be back," McCoy said with an answering grin. "You'd better believe it. Thought we were so much space dust."

Kirk buried his wince at those words before he could think about that possibility too much. The past was past. They were all home now. "Space dust? My best officers?" he said with a grin. "Never."

"It was pretty damn close," McCoy reminded him.

"We're Starfleet officers. Close is the name of the game. But you know what they say about horseshoes and hand-grenades."

"Sure do. Never quite got that saying, though." McCoy's grin widened. "Close in horseshoes don't matter a thing."

Kirk laughed, feeling something in his shoulders relax despite the concerns still riding him. "Depends on how you play the game, Doc. Well, I guess I'm off to check on how my first officer's holding up."

McCoy gave a start of mock surprise. "So you do listen to my advice. Who knew?"

"And how do you know that wasn't my next stop anyway? I'd hate to break my perfect record of ignoring my doctor's recommendations except when directly ordered to shape up or in cases of imminent collapse."

"Well, it's your loss." McCoy stopped for a moment, and his face turned serious again. "Jim," he said. "Be . . . careful." The unspoken words that would have formed the end of the sentence seemed clear enough—with what you say to him. With what you do.

Kirk considered his words, his concerned face. Whether it stemmed from misplaced guilt or not, McCoy truly was worried. "Understood," he said.