Ever been on the inside of a starship brig?
I'll take it over an Andorian prison any day, but honestly I've never seen anywhere so spartan. As if affording me the bed was a luxury. I thought about an escape attempt, but it was only a means to keep my bored-stiff mind occupied. What I really wanted to do was to call Spock—I wondered if he'd talk to me. I couldn't ask though, I couldn't face Spock. I'd preferred to sit there and wonder if I'll ever start living again. Spock was too bloody perfect. Oh yeah, when we were kids he'd have the occasional outburst, someone'd insult his mother (he couldn't deal with that) or something, but he grew into a man that as far as I could tell was some kind of unreal phenomena. Perfect grades, perfect health, perfect career—obviously we drifted away. He had things to do. I had people to do
I was raised on Vulcan. My father had a job with the Vulcan embassy. Periodically throughout my childhood I ended up in front of a psychologist, just checking to see if I was turning out right, I suppose. People assume I've got some kind of Vulcan-ness about me, because of my upbringing. No, not really. I never had any qualms about showing emotion or anything like that. That's why I gravitated to Spock. He was an outcast, too. They were worse to him, though, and worse to him because he was a friend of mine. Many of the other children kept their distance from me, but Spock was sought out. Emotionless, my ass. As if the bullies had any other reason but to inflate their own sick sense of self-worth. I still get angry about it now. Spock and I had countless arguments after I tried to defend him. I didn't realize at the time, but it was probably the worst thing I could have done for him. Once the arguingt was so vehement I actually started to cry. I desperately tried to hide it from him, but it was pretty obvious. He immediately stopped yelling (yes; he had raised his voice) and we just sat there, unsure of what to say. Then I knew that he did feel, and he did have a very real sense of compassion.
Don't ask me why, I remembered that day as I stared listlessly at the dull metal barely holding together my rusted tin can ship. Realized I couldn't run anymore. I suppose all those years on Vulcan must have done some good after all, because the only logical solution was to surrender. I could continue running forever, but the criminal record and the "wanted" status would never go away. Never go by a real identity, crime begetting crime, for the rest of my life. Or I could get out while I still could. Prison? Oh, most assuredly, but at least Federation authorities were fair. I can hardly say the same for the Andorian dealers who left both my legs broken.
They said I was desperate. I guess I was. I lost everything when Vulcan was destroyed. The surviving Vulcans seemed rarely spoke of the event itself. But it was obvious I was prime real estate for terrorist recruiting officers. No job, no family, no home—it's not as if I had anything else going for me. Eventually I realized belatedly it was wrong, so, so wrong. The whole thing was based on a senseless desire to feel after the numbness had become permanent, and it used evil means to arrive there. There were no real goals. Vulcans, humans; anybody, really. Anybody who had nothing left. And there were more of those than anybody would have guessed. Once the drugs hit most of us were too strung out all the time to remember our own names. We were just puppets to madmen, driving us mad with drugs and zealousness.
But I couldn't do it anymore. To this day I don't know how I got out. Miraculously I managed, and as soon as I made it to Federation space I switched on the public subspace frequencies. That's where I learned I was a terrorist, and all Federation ships were on standing orders to arrest me and my peers on sight. So here I was. A real honest-to-goodness terrorist in way, way over my head. But where could I even go? Earth, possibly. But what could I do, walk around until someone arrested me? The bravery required to simply escape had effectively drained me of all the courage I had left. I couldn't do that, couldn't face Earth. But there was one individual, a childhood friend who I had been so very close to. An outcast who'd carved his perfect career out of his perfect grades and perfect demeanour. So I went to find James T. Kirk and the U.S.S Enterprise to turn myself in to Spock, my childhood best friend.