The First Casualty

By Talktidy

Disclaimer: I love these characters — would that they were mine.

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Introductory Notes

Many moons ago, I posted a snippet of this tale under the title His Mother's Child. I hoped for some feedback to induce me to keep my nose to the grindstone. I was not exactly sold on that title, hence the rename to The First Casualty. Since then I posted a reworked prologue and a first chapter. I also did what I swore I never would: posting before the piece was completed. At one stage I was producing regular monthly updates, and, while my story was only part written, I had a very extensive outline to guide me. Unfortunately, since that time, real life stuck a rather large oar into my world.

Firstly, in 2016, my partner died suddenly. Secondly, later that year, my mother's health deteriorated to the point where I had no choice other than to move in with her. I am usually most productive in the morning, but this is now when most of the demands are placed on my time.

I am continuing to slog away at TFC. Under the circumstances, though, I shall not be posting anything else, until I have either completed Part 1 of the story arc, or the whole thing is done and dusted. At the moment I am leaning towards a full completion.

This fic started life when I wondered what might happen if Spock never made it to Starfleet — no, wait! don't go! Come back! T'Pring buys it in the first chapter and doesn't get her claws into Spock, honest. There's gonna be space battles and everything. Where was I? Oh yes, since I cannot envisage Trek without the Kirk/Spock friendship, I want to know how, why, where and when they make each other's acquaintance. Just to warn you, but I thought it would be more fun if they didn't get along to start with. No, don't go! I said to start with.

Some of you after looking at my reviews might wonder why early reviewers reference Romulans, when there seems to be a distinct lack of them in this piece. I originally envisaged this with them as the bad guys, but the way I was writing them didn't comply with canon. Also, since the Trek reboot already went down that track, I thought it better to get me some different antagonists.

If you like your Kirk/Spock on the slashy side, you'll be disappointed here. Please don't assume I disapprove of slash — it's simply not my cup of Tarkelian tea.

Needless to say, this is an AU and the premise is probably not to everyone's taste, but I'll do my best to make reading this thing as entertaining as possible and worth your while.

Second fair warning: I never met a comma I didn't love. Also please note I am a Brit and I am using British English spellings and grammar usage throughout.

Many thanks to my frequent commenters Auua Ytjoml, PHXYote and bexxe. You can have no idea how chuffed I am to receive regular reviews. Cheers me up no end, because it proves people are reading this thing.

HeronS is currently providing me with feedback on this work, for which I am immensely grateful. If anybody else is interested in being my beta, I would be over the moon.

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Blurb: Before Spock ever entertains the notion of joining Starfleet, a new foe of the Federation emerges, and events in the galaxy conspire to put him on a different path.

Along the way a young Spock meets a young Mr Kirk, who has no reason to trust, or like, Vulcans.

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AN: Gerent (pronounced jeer-uh nt) is actually a real word and means a person who rules or manages. I didn't know that until a few days ago.

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PART 1: The First Casualty

In war, truth is the first casualty ~ Aeschylus

Chapter 1: A New Dawn

Time to die.

His captors no longer came to his cell to torture him; instead they now appraised him with an altogether more favourable eye.

An astonishingly distrustful species these Pasherini, quick to resort to torture to discover information they desired. Important then that what he disclosed should come when he was in apparent extremis and not before. Were he any creature other than an instrument of his Gods he might have truly broken under such treatment, but his conditioning kept his real secrets safe. The Pasherini would never know he had intentionally travelled here to this point in time. The Bajoran's strange instrument had been far more effective than he had ever expected. Silly Bajorans and their equally silly heresies, but he could not fault the technology: the orb had worked without flaw.

The Pasherini beat the security codes out of him that they might access his ship's library. It would garner a welter of new discoveries and new technologies, enough to sidetrack them from demanding he account for how he had arrived in their space. Eventually they would discover the ship's log contained a feasible narrative of a space-time discontinuity to aid his subterfuge, sufficient to satisfy the inevitable questions that would arise in the fullness of time.

His Gods had deliberated and selected the Pasherini, because they were distrustful and desperate, besieged by Romulans on one front, openly appraised for conquest by yet more rivals on the other. Their desperation made them greedy for the benefits of what his ship's resources offered, and not slow to calculate the effect of unleashing this new bounty upon those overweening competitors.

His Gods were clever. He had seen the future and it was glorious.

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Juka steeled himself against the fury of his superior.

Gerent Yarterok, face like thunder, stared at the body lying on the floor of the dank cell. "How did he die, Juka?"

"We are endeavouring to discover that, Gerent. A preliminary investigation points to the prisoner self-terminating."

"Poison?"

"It would seem so, sir." He gathered his cloak tighter about him and stared at the prisoner's body, ashamed that death always discommoded him, the prisoner's battered flesh even more so. Yet, something about this death also troubled him in quite a different manner.

Yarterok knew him well. "Out with it, Juka."

"Sir?"

"Tell me."

"My misgivings stem from the prisoner deciding now was the opportune point at which to kill himself."

"One would suppose the creature could take no more of our questioning."

"A reasonable conclusion, except that he had weathered the worst excesses of our interrogation methods, which had, in fact, ceased by this time. Why not end his agonies earlier?"

"Well, we are not likely to discover that now."

"No, we shall not." He had nothing other than a vague feeling of disquiet, but the notion they were caught up in an opening gambit of a much larger game persisted. He looked on in silence as Yarterok indicated the body might now be removed for the inevitable necropsy to be conducted. The prisoner subjected to one last indignity, one final examination of the remains that they deliver up whatever else might be gleaned about his species.

Yarterok watched the attendants encase the alien in a body shroud. "Did you ever learn the prisoner's name?"

"Weyoun."

Yarterok allowed himself a huff of amused dismissal. "A name only a barbarian would glory in. Still, his advent in our lives offers new, exciting times ahead, my young We are on the cusp of a new era."

A new era of foolishness? Ambition matched only by hubris? It would not do to utter the sentiments aloud, though. Yarterok appreciated and indulged his waywardness, a source of much amusement, but even his patron's indulgence had its limits.

"We shall have the means of dissuading Romulan incursions into our territory." Yarterok laughed, full throated, eager for the future. "Now, young Juka, tell me how is my sister and that family of yours?"

"Ever growing. We are to be blessed with another child."

"Ha!" A slap on the back followed. "Come, I have not forgotten you promised to feed me and I am hungry."

xxx


It was just after Spock's seventeenth birthday, in the spring of the new year, that Sickness came to Vulcan.

The Sickness left a trail of fear and apprehension in its path that, however much his people might endeavour to suppress and conceal, was apparent to anyone who choose to see and there were some offworlders without the grace to be blind, offworlders whose sympathies were all the more aroused because the Sickness afflicted those on the cusp of adulthood.

Healers and medical professionals, whether from Vulcan or from other parts of the Federation, were divided on the disquieting notion the Sickness might be a biological weapon, a notion only entertained because of gathering strife in the galaxy. Evidence cited for this hypothesis was the narrow focus of those stricken. Whatever the truth of such conjecture, the search for a cure became more urgent as the numbers succumbing to illness mounted and the gravity of the situation manifested itself in distressing mortality statistics.

He overheard his parents, Sarek and Amanda, consider that now was an opportune time for their child to visit Earth and explore his Terran heritage, except before any such arrangements might be put into place, Vulcan was quarantined, and quarantined with a degree of zeal bearing an unfortunate side effect: Vulcans, returning to their world for urgent business with their families, were denied permission to descend to the surface, Vulcans who then went on to exhibit interesting medical symptoms of their own. At least one death occurred before disclosing mortifying details became an unavoidable necessity and the remainder of those stranded in orbit were then allowed to the surface without further hindrance.

In the absence of removing his child from Vulcan, his father considered the alternatives, and decided on removing himself from his household to his place of employment. His work brought him into proximity with a plethora of other individuals, Vulcans and offworlders; Sarek would not countenance one of them being a vector of infection to his son. It said everything about his mother's state of mind that she, who loathed being parted from Sarek, helped his father pack with quiet efficiency.

At the evening meal, Sarek confirmed arrangements for his removal. He regarded his father gravely and nodded in quiet thought, but said little in response, instead turning his attention to his pale and pensive mother, plainly worried beneath a tottering façade of composure, and promptly steered the conversation to talk of other matters. Neither he, nor Sarek, had mentioned that T'Pring, his promised bondmate, was ill.

In the event, his father's stay at the embassy was short lived. He was barely aware of it, but on the third day of Sarek's absence, his mother summoned his father home. Despite all precautions, he had contracted the Sickness.

He thought his Terran heritage might have spared him, but he burned with fever. His mother nursed him, doing her utmost to keep his temperature down and, in narrowing windows of lucidity, concern for her grew, as dark smudges appeared beneath her eyes, but she would not fully surrender her care of him.

Delirium warred within him for five days. On the sixth, the fever broke. He surfaced into consciousness, blinking in confusion, when his mother burst into silent, relieved tears over him, and was moved to offer her a reassuring squeeze on her hand. From that point on his recovery gathered momentum and two days later, he was out of bed, although Sarek exerted paternal authority enough to forbid him to over extend himself.

He observed the days that unfolded with a grim fortitude. The Sickness moved apace through the population of Vulcan's youth and the death toll mounted. The day after his fever broke, news came that it had claimed T'Pring. He might secretly have considered that his parents' selection of T'Pring as a bondmate had been a mistake, but he would not have wished to be released in such a fashion. An elderly cousin of T'Pring's mother notified his family; it was said the distress of T'Pring's parents was so raw, so palpable, they had sequestered themselves away from the sight of others.

As the season wore on and deaths began to plateau, T'Pring's demise presented an immediate issue requiring urgent address, one that concerned his future well-being. Vulcan's youth began to recover from the Sickness and tentatively resume their lives. Tentatively, for it seemed all of Vulcan held its breath, wondering if a population tested by pandemic would incite ancient drives into action.

Such trepidation was indeed warranted. Twelve days after he recovered from the Sickness, he burned with an altogether different affliction.

Ten days after he took T'Pring's cousin, T'Mia, to wife, the probable author of the Sickness was revealed. The Pasherini, a hitherto little known race, committed an unprovoked attack on Federation colonies, on Federation trading outposts, and a fleet of alarming capability engaged and bested Vulcan forces in the skies above their own world. Attacks replicated on other targets throughout the Federation.

For the first time in an age, Vulcan was at war.

xxx


Classmates watched his progress towards the Commandant's office, looking on with either concern or relish for his anticipated fate. James T Kirk returned their looks with an equanimity he was not feeling.

Evidently someone had betrayed him. Finnegan?

He tried to calculate the bill for his little switcheroo.

A demerit on his record? Almost certainly.

Punishment detail for anywhere between a month and the best part of eight months — what remained of his second year at the academy, in other words? Very likely.

Dismissal from the Academy? No, he would not countenance that. An inner voice told him he was deluding himself, that he might be clearing out his quaters within the hour.

The last consideration made him feel ill. Apologise and throw himself upon the mercy of the Commandant or brazen it out, talk fast and present a defence? — in a time of war a commander, with the lives of his crew to consider, did not have the luxury of adhering to Marquess of Queensbury Rules. If a piece of skulduggery might ensure his crew's survival, why should a commander consider such a tactic forbidden fruit?

He arrived at the Commandant's office. It was an ominous sign that at his approach, the expression on the face of the Commandant's personal assistant, Stuart Zinman, dallied with what could only be considered pity. His hackles rose at that, the inclination toward taking the fight to his superiors already hardening. He offered a polite, if curt nod, surprised when Stuart actually entered the Commandant's office to quietly announce his arrival, surprised further when Commandant Mendez came out of his office and ushered him within, a fatherly arm extended toward him. They were not alone. Grace Smith rose to her feet at his entry and Kirk halted in his tracks, understanding at last why this was not going in accordance with the anticipated script.

Sam.

This scenario had played out at least a dozen times with other classmates that he was aware of since the beginning of the academic year. Far better the reprimand, far better he be thrown out on his ear, than the news the Academy's Commandant and Chief Counsellor were about to impart.

His brother was serving as a medical technician aboard Constellation. How their parents had fought over what they considered an epic waste of a hard won training as a biologist. Sam had bitched that they were pissed because his position didn't warrant a commission and fancy braid on a uniform sleeve, which he had thought was a low blow and beneath his brother. That had really made his parents mad and neither they, nor Sam had spoken again, until well after Sam had received his first posting to Wasp. He frowned. On Sam's last shore leave on Earth he'd bitched about the lack of action Constellation was seeing, that she was patrolling along the Andorian system, which Sam regarded as little more than a milk run.

With the whirl of memories occupying his mind, it was a distant part of his attention that registered he'd been nudged toward a sofa and he was seated. His tongue had adhered to the roof of his mouth, but at last he grated out, "My brother?"

The expression on Grace Smith's face flickered in confusion; the Commandant helped her out. "Jim's brother, George Samuel Kirk, is serving aboard Constellation."

"Jim, it's not Constellation," Grace Smith said.

He stared, confusion giving way to comprehension. If not Sam… His parents had taken passage aboard a fast passenger transport bound for Starbase 11, where Sam's ship would put in for a short time.

"I'm sorry, Jim," said the counsellor. "Lucy was set upon by an Orion privateer. The crew managed to get out a distress call, but when our own patrols arrived—"

"My parents." It wasn't a question, he knew what Orion privateers did to a ship. Grab any strong and comely creatures they might sell for a profit. Liquidate the remainder. Locusts.

"—there wasn't much left of her. I am very sorry, Jim. Your parents didn't make it."

No, this wasn't right. It just wasn't right. He stared at Grace Smith, his mouth shaping words that would not come. And he'd fretted over the Kobayashi Maru? Hysterical laughter threatened to bubble up. Some things would not respond to a little recalibration here, a little finessing there. To talking oneself out of a jam.

Some things could not be overcome, after all.

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