Loyal Unto Slaughter

by Swiss

Prompt: Five times Spock saved his captain, and one time McCoy saved them both.

1. His Reputation

"That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, / For slander's mark was ever yet the fair. / If some suspect of ill masked not thy show, / Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shoulds't owe."

- (Shakespeare, Sonnet 70)

When James Tiberius Kirk became captain of the Enterprise, Spock began spending an inordinate amount of time responding to complaints from the Admiralty. At first they were inconsequential issues: petty grievances about neglected docking procedures, delayed paperwork, and other minor censures from the desks of nettled superiors that seemed as much offended by Kirk's youth as by his actions.

With time, however, the missives became more trying: appeals for Spock to censor the man's 'rashness', communiqués relaying the ill will of ambassadors, governments, and various royalties whose egos had been stepped on by the directness of the captain's approach. All of these, Spock responded to with a great deal of magnanimity, brushing over misunderstandings, defending actions when necessary, and outright dismissing most of the others.

Then the accusations began escalating, shifting from mere procedural defects and personal clashes to become truly damning. Accusations of deliberate breaches in the Prime Directive. Demands for explanations about casualties supposedly lost due to neglect.

Spock had earned a great deal of esteem during his time as First Officer under Admiral Pike. He had many times been approached about achieving his own command. In a way that his own people never had, Starfleet considered him a tremendous success. Spock had occasionally been human enough to be proud of that fact.

Yet as he spent more time in the company of James T. Kirk and their friendship grew, the dispatches imploring him to restrain, to undermine, to censure began to leave him decidedly cross. Which was why one evening, when Spock sat down to a console full of more insulting messages, he pulled up a blank document and wrote the following response:

To the Admiralty

Attn: Opponents of Captain James Kirk

I am writing to inform you that a misconception has developed concerning my ability to subvert the actions of my superior officer, or, indeed, my willingness to do so. In an attempt to circumvent future misunderstandings regarding this matter, I wish to make my official position known:

While it is within my duties as First Officer to mitigate any concerns about the Enterprise and her people, I have no interest in commenting on the nature or motivation of my commander's personal affairs, provided they do not lower the effectiveness of our mission, which I do not deem they have.

In regards to your latest request that I consider an alternative command post, I must officially refuse, as it would be illogical to absent myself as an officer in the fleet's most successful and esteemed flagship, and to her captain, who has himself been recognized as an unparalleled leader and who I hold in great esteem, not only as a superior, but also as a person.

If you should have any further inquiries, I request you send them through the proper third-party channels, for though I find the accusations absurd in the extreme and otherwise unworthy of notice, I would prefer to debunk them in a public arena governed by a concert of peers. Please feel free to arrange this at any time; I certainly look forward to investigating the substantiation of your claims.

With regards,

Spock

First Officer, U.S.S. Enterprise

"Damn fine letter," the doctor had commented later when he read it privately, and Spock had nodded.

2. From the Truth

"This above all: To thine own self be true, / And it must follow as the light the day, / Thou cans't not then be false to any man."

- (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Sec 3)

Jim was of an unusually amorous nature. It wasn't that he was false about it, though there had been times when both of them had used a manipulation of passion as a means to an end. It was never more than that for Spock, and it consistently made him uncomfortable. For the captain, however…

"You love hard enough to embrace the whole universe if you wanted to, Jim," Doctor McCoy often teased, utilizing his driest, most exasperated eye roll.

The captain, however, knew him too well to take insult and usually retorted, "In a way totally unlike how you're all gooey center, right, Bones?"

Both exchanges were exaggerations, but Spock understood their essential truth. Both of his shipmates possessed an unusually high capacity for acceptance. In McCoy, it manifested in an empathy so complete he was occasionally a danger to himself. And, in a way Spock could not help but admire, Jim seemed capable of loving without reservation or limitation. But such complete giving over of emotion to another could also be hazardous. He remembered Jim's dangerous depression after Edith Keller had died.

And now Miramanee.

In a disaster beyond even their usual scope, the captain had been marooned without memory of the Enterprise for two months, during which time he had married and, in a very expedient way, gone on to father a child. A child it was unclear he fully remembered, in spite of his tender farewell to the woman on the planet.

He was all but swaying by the time they brought him back to the Enterprise, disoriented from the sudden, uncertain return of his faculties and in shock from his injures past and present. Yet even when they got him to sickbay, he had remained restless, straining to get up from the biobed, calling for his wife.

"No, Miramanee. I need to –"

"Easy Jim." McCoy tried to keep him still. Seeing the distress and concern twisting up the doctor's expression, Spock intervened, taking the captain's shoulders so a sedative could be prepared.

He leaned closer to his friend. "Everything is fine, Jim. We've already left the planet."

"Spock?" Jim responded to his voice. Trust amplified from his dilated eyes, a calm willingness to believe anything he said. He rasped, "You handled everything? She's okay?"

Almost every race of civilized beings had some form of proverb or platitude surrounding the importance of Truth; Surak himself had certainly said much on the illogic of subterfuge. It was a tenet so strongly held that many believed Vulcans incapable of lying. But if there was one thing that Spock had learned form the company of humans, it was that while a falsehood might cost some small part of your integrity, it was also, at times, the greatest mercy one man could bestow upon another.

For a single moment, Spock thought of the body they had left behind, with the tiny, unborn life cold inside it. Then he said, "Yes, Jim. Now rest."

Across the bed, the doctor looked at him, weariness and guilt pronounced on his face. Yet he met Spock's eyes and then blinked: accord.

Jim never had to know the full truth.

3. From Harm

"Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage!"

- (Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Sec 2, 1.1)

Humans were very fragile beings. This was clear to Spock even as a young child, when an overzealous grab at his mother had resulted in two broken fingers. Aside from putting him off the ritual of 'tickling', he had learned two very important lessons from this event:

The first was that when someone suffered because of one's actions, it was unbearable. The second was that Terrians, however hardy their appearance, were as delicate as one of the roses in his mother's garden; earth roses, of course, which could not stand even one day unprotected in the desert.

He'd heard it described biologically – composition of the musculature and its tissues. Cell structure, position, and purpose of the tendons, the density of bone. It was an interesting academic study even if one never personally encountered Terrians.

Humans were tenacious, though, and allowed no limitation to prevent them from making their mark on the galaxy. Like Jim Kirk. Stocky and well-formed, exceptionally talented, smiling and shinning all over in some indefinable way. Spock grew comfortable putting his shoulder against Jim's when the situation was dire, relying on him as an equal, a warrior-friend. And sometimes Spock could, if not forget, then at least badly underestimate his inherent weakness as a man of earth.

At least, he could until a situation arose like this one and they were forced to flee feverishly from yet another primitive race. Communicators damaged, weapons absconded. Their only option to provide time for rescue. Then it became a matter of percentages.

43% likelihood the captain would suffer broken or fragmented bones at the hands of their assailants. 25% likelihood of concussion or skull fracture. 13% likelihood of internal bleeding. 100% chance of injury of some sort (severed artery, debilitating or permanent injury, damage to eye-sight, dexterity, lasting pain). There was already a disturbing red rivulet slipping down the side of his face from a cut near his scalp.

Spock had percentages too, of course, but the numbers were smaller. He would survive –likely – and without permanent or lasting injury – probably. They needed a distraction, and there was no doubt in Spock's mind that he was more suitable to provide it.

"Spock." Jim's mouth was curled into a grimace that was part discomfort and part ready aggression. Prepared to plunge himself into that mob and submit to whatever consequences might come to his fragile body. Silently, he requesting any final recommendations. Not knowing that his First had already decided. Had already calculated that his commander was too slow to stop him. He would not escape being wounded, but it would be a small price to pay for Jim.

Spock stepped away from the shielding stone.

4. From Distress

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

- (Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Sec 1, 1.31)

It was the general consensus of the Enterprise crew that their latest mission could not have gone more poorly. Spock knew this was not accurate. The ship was intact, they had suffered only 8 percent casualties, and while the situation had become untenable from the standpoint of diplomacy, the planet did still exist, an outcome that had been heavily in doubt for a while.

Still, the crew was justifiably dispirited, and none so much as their captain. It did not help that during the most desperate part of the mission, he had been forced to remove the doctor from his station and isolate him in his quarters to keep him from bringing himself to court marshal. Everyone had feigned deafness in the face of McCoy's indignant cries as he condemned the captain for following orders, as he pleaded to be allowed to intervene. Then he'd been escorted from the bridge.

But when the casualty reports finally rolled – both from the natives of the planet and the Enterprise crew – the doctor's half-hysterical words had come back to everyone's ears and rung out like an accusation.

Jim had not said anything then, merely pressed his lips together and signed the appropriate documents, keeping up his command face for his weary crew. Only after they had departed for free space had he turned over the con and retreated from public view.

Spock followed as soon as he was able, slipping into the captain's quarters without bothering to announce himself. "Jim?"

"Here, Spock."

He was at his desk, leaning back in the seat while the computer screen hummed. At a glance, Spock could see that he was once again reviewing the ship's casualty report, a substantial list even without the massive totals that had still been coming in from the ground when they left. Jim thumbed his lip as the names scrolled by.

"There are forty-three names on this list, Spock," he said. "Bones told me it would happen."

"I heard the doctor shouting," the Vulcan answered. "He was hardly behaving in a logical or appropriate manner."

The man snorted, but not in a way that conveyed humor of any kind. "Logical or not, he was right. Right about our orders. Right about the fallout."

In such times, Spock felt it best to be frank. "Captain, if you had not removed McCoy from the bridge before his display became a matter of record, he would have been brought up for mutiny, if not for treason. The orders that compelled us to act where beyond us all. You did as you had to."

"I put him out of his sickbay, Spock. Four people died on the table during surgery. What if they had lived? What if I had let him beam down the planet? What if I had just lost those damn orders out of an airlock before we got into this mess?"

"If you had given into the doctor's demands, he would likely be among the dead." Spock approached, easing himself down across from his captain. "And if you had ignored your orders, you would not be a fit captain for this vessel."

Jim made a pained noise in his throat at this statement, standing in jerky frustration to pace a few steps away. He scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I always believed this was what I was meant to do, but this? Bullying by Starfleet's order. Needless loss of life. We had no business on that planet, Spock."

Spock privately agreed, though not enough to verbalize it. Instead, he simply repeated, "We do what we must." Then, standing, he approached, laying a careful hand on his shoulder. "Jim, you are my friend, but I am not saying this merely to ease your conscious. You were not responsible for this. You have done all that you could."

The look that Jim gave him was vulnerable in a way that always made Spock wonder what he was thinking, being on board a ship so full of such exposed souls. But then the expression solidified. Accepting Spock's words and letting go. Jim was strong enough to do that; it was just one more thing that made him such an exceptional commander.

The moment past, Spock removed his hand to fold it behind his back. "Perhaps we should seek out the doctor's libations," he suggested.

"You want a drink?" The captain gauged his voice to imply he was scandalized, a humorous trope he often employed.

Spock tilted his head slightly. "I believe that McCoy may also be in need of company."

A moment of quiet, solemn understanding. Then Jim said, "To his quarters, then. Let's go drown own sorrows."

"Yes, Captain."

5. From Death

"Have we eaten on the insane root / That takes the reason prisoner?"

- (Shakespeare, MacBeth, Act I, Sec 3)

He looked for them in the twilight of absence. There was nothing here; no start and no finish. There was no space, no separateness, no form. Spock knew who he was only as a credit to his mental training, and even that was weakening.

He knew that they had been trapped. He knew that the attack had happened to their minds. Somewhere, where his physical self existed, he knew that they were dying – that this projection was just the place they had been sent to do it.

And they were already fading.

Clamping down hard on the connection he maintained with his body, Spock stretched his lifeline for his floundering friends. They could have no such anchor. They would need his help.

He found Jim first. He was a low burning fleck in the featurelessness of their prison. He was a low cry, steadily loosing the ability to make even that small sound. Psi points had no meaning here. Without hesitation, Spock simply reached out and touched him.

He was not prepared for the weak but eager way Jim's mind latched onto him, clinging like a drowning man. Which he was. With nothing to draw him back, he was a tiny individual spark of personality and voice and light sputtering in this place of nothing. Spock was the only real thing, and Jim clung.

'I'll take you back,' the Vulcan thought. 'Yes, hold onto me.'

The doctor's frightened signature lingered nearby, also in need of rescue. Because of his fear, he would be harder to extract and Spock would have to return for him. But for now, he held onto Jim, their minds pressed together, breathing.

Alive.

1. From Each Other

"But men are men, the best sometimes forget."

- (Shakespeare, Othello, Act II, Sec 3)

"Len?"

The sickbay was quiet at this time, the shift cycle at rest for most of the bodies on board. The lights had been turned down around the two beds stationed in this section of the room, and the soft noises of the monitors were the only sounds.

The doctor, who had been leaning against one of the beds straightened up slowly in his chair and answered in a raspy voice, "In here, Christine."

The woman approached quietly, unwilling to disturb their two newest denizens, even if she already knew they were merely unconscious, uninjured aside from a few bruises. She moved to the side of their captain.

"I just heard the most unbelievable story," she said. "About two senior officers who came just short of a fist fight. It's hard to believe, because I can't imagine what would cause them to act like that toward each other. And I have a good imagination."

The doctor rolled his eyes. "The explanation is simple," he said, and gestured to his sleeping patients. "This one's an idiot, and that one's a Vulcan idiot."

"What happened?"

"You know what they say about unstoppable forces and immovable objects. I've never known two more pigheaded men."

Chapel wisely chose not to say that she might know of at least one more who could match them. "Do you know what they were fighting over?" she asked instead, even as she checked the captains vitals over the head of the bed and made a careful note on his chart.

Digging the heel of his hand into his eyes, which had to be gritty with sleep, Leonard answered, "Yeah. The priestess told us we were 'honorably invited' to present our champion in some kind of formal fight to the death. Neither of them wanted the other to do it. Then it devolved into this argument about how stupidly self-sacrificing each other were. It got so heated I thought they were going to have it out right there." He blew out his breath in exasperation. "I told the priestess that the two of them were in the throws of an ancient, barbaric bonding ritual and that it would be safest if I was allowed to sedate them."

"And they believed you?"

The doctor snorted. "Actually, they were starting to look uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure they knew a pissing contest when they saw it, but were content to pretend ignorance and let us both off the hook."

"Very magnanimous," the nurse commented.

"We're damned lucky," Leonard swore, slumping down further in his chair.

The way that the dimed light reflected off his face, it made the wrinkles around his eyes stand out starkly. A fine sliver hair or two had begun to work into the spaces at his temples in a way that she did not recall from four years ago.

He sighed. "They're going to be the death of me, Chris," he said.

How well she knew.