A/N: Welcome to my very first (and probably last) Star Trek TOS fan fiction. Just to orient you, this is genderswap!Kirk, with Nichelle Nichols as Jamara T. Kirk, combining Uhura and Kirk into a single character. Spock/OC. There will be a sequel to this over in Star Trek TNG, and possibly some on Deep Space 9. If you enjoy and want to continue to follow the saga, I hope you check those out when they're posted. Spock will pop into both of those. I'll put updates on here when those are put up.
-C
The lighting was brighter than usual, but Counselor Vivian Buckingham liked to adjust the light up to wake herself up after a long day of seeing patients. She'd spent her entire career on the USS Excalibur, and Captain Harris had made her First Officer not even a full year ago, making her already heavy workload even heavier. She didn't complain because this was what she'd dedicated her life to, but she knew she wouldn't want to be a captain any time soon.
The door to her office opened and she turned to find a young, green Yeoman standing before her.
"Excuse me, Counselor," she said, smiling. "The Captain wants to see you. And I have the patient records you asked for on the newly assigned."
The girl held out a box of records and Vivian thanked her, locking the records away to view later before going to meet Captain Harris in his quarters. As she walked, she adjusted her blonde hair, wondering if the tendrils had come out of place again while she was making notes.
"Vivian," he said as she entered. "Have a seat, I've got a bit of news for you."
She sat down where he motioned. He was smiling, so no one in her family was dead or ill, but she couldn't imagine what else he would call her in for like this.
"I received the new records," she said, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. "I should be able to schedule any necessary appointments in the morning."
"No, I don't think so," he said, still smiling. "You see, Starfleet Command has sent me new orders. For you, actually."
Vivian tilted her head in question. She'd served almost her entire career under Captain Harris, and she was very good at reading him, but she couldn't figure out what it was he was trying to tell her.
"What sort of orders?"
"Well, there's good news and news that's bad for me," he said with a laugh. "You're being promoted to Lieutenant Commander, so congratulations for that. I would have liked that to come through sooner, but I think they were using it to soften the blow of taking you away from me."
Vivian sat forward a bit and said, "What do you mean?"
"You're being transferred, Vivian. The Enterprise needs a new counselor and Captain Kirk has been interested lately in someone with more tactical expertise."
She licked her lips and looked down at her hands. To be on the Enterprise was an honor, but she didn't want to leave behind the ship she'd become so fond of. On the other hand, she had been looking for an opportunity to get more tactical challenges. Things had been very quiet on the missions of the Excalibur lately, and Vivian hadn't been top of her year in tactics at the Academy to simply twiddle her thumbs.
"Well," she said, smoothing her skirt again. "Well, you know how I feel about this ship, John."
"Spare me, Counselor," he said, still laughing a little. "If I never hear from your father about shore leave again it'll be too soon."
They shared a smile and a drink and then Vivian asked when she would be leaving.
"You transport in an hour when we get within range. That should give you plenty of time to get your things together. Enjoy the Enterprise, alright? And pay me a visit sometime when you've got leave."
Vivian hugged the captain and hurried to her quarters, packing her bags.
When she announced her her parents that she was going to join Starfleet, her father had been more nervous than proud. Her uncle had been a Starfleet officer whose ship was destroyed in a conflict, and Bayard Buckingham lived in constant fear that his eldest child, who took after her uncle in nearly every way, would meet the same end as his brother-in-law.
Vivian had specialized in psychiatry and psychology, particularly the psychology of interspecies interactions. She'd published several papers on the growing phenomenon of intermarrying between Federation species and the effects on the psychology of offspring. She was also an expert, as her uncle had been, in tactical operations, and had done extensive combat training that wasn't typically necessary for someone wanting to be a counselor.
Packing up her room took almost exactly fifty minutes and she made her way to the transporter room, where she and the staff waited for news from the bridge that they were within range and the Enterprise was ready to receive her.
"Ready, Counselor?" the young engineering officer said when the bridge gave them the all clear.
"Ready."
Vivian closed her eyes and opened them again in a different transporter room, looking at two strangers.
"Counselor Vivian Buckingham," said a beautiful woman with dark skin and ebony eyes, stepping forward and holding out a hand. "Captain Jamara T. Kirk. Welcome to the Enterprise. This is our Chief Medical Officer, Doctor McCoy."
Vivian shook the doctor's hand and stepped off the transporter.
"Captain Harris said you were in need of a new Counselor," she said, looking up at the bright blue eyes of the doctor, then back at the captain. "What happened to your last one?"
"She died on a mission," Captain Kirk said slowly. "Hopefully a thing we won't be repeating. Starfleet Command says you have tactical experience. I've read your record. I've made you Second Officer."
She felt a rush of relief and nodded. Someone else would have the daily effort of being the Executive Officer, and she could focus on her patients when she wasn't on bridge instead of having to think of three things at once all the time.
"That sounds perfect," she said. "Do we have time for me to take my things to my quarters?"
"I'm afraid we have to go to the bridge right away for a briefing of the senior staff, but you'll be escorted as soon as that's finished. We've received new orders from Starfleet Command and we need to review them as quickly as possible."
Vivian adjusted her pack on her shoulder and picked up her thankfully-light suitcase. She followed the predictable pathway from the transporter room to the bridge behind the captain and the doctor, and she found the rest of the senior staff waiting on the bridge for their arrival.
"Alright, everyone," Captain Kirk said, stepping back and standing next to a man who appeared to be Vulcan. "This is our new Counselor, Lieutenant Commander Vivian Buckingham. She's being put between Mr. Spock and Mr. Sulu on the chain of command. I will need to discuss some particulars with the three of you when this general meeting is over. Mr. Spock will explain our change of orders."
The Vulcan stepped forward and said, "Starfleet is sending us to Psi 2000, which is about to rip apart. We are to pick up a scientific party and taking detailed scientific information of the breakdown of the planet. A small landing party will be sent down to help the scientists with their equipment, and then we will transfer both party and equipment to the nearest Starbase once our data collection is complete."
Vivian nodded with a few others around her. The mission was fairly standard, nothing especially odd or difficult. When Captain Kirk asked if anyone had questions, no one had anything that took longer than a few yeses and nos and most of the staff were sent off to their own jobs after introducing themselves to Vivian. A lot of new names to remember, but she would do her best to learn quickly and not be the weak link in a very tight-running crew.
She turned back to Captain Kirk, who was standing between Mr. Spock and Mr. Sulu – a smiling Asian man. "Mr. Spock is our Chief Science Officer, and Mr. Sulu is our Chief Helmsman," she said, walking toward her chair. "Mr. Spock, we want a small team to go down. How many people would you suggest?"
"Two should be sufficient," he said, picking up a PADD. "Three at most. I will go down, if you agree, Captain." She nodded. "And the highest person on the duty roster from the science department is Ensign Tormolen."
"Any further suggestions, Mr. Sulu, Counselor?"
They shook their heads and the captain asked that once Vivian was settled in her quarters she return to the bridge for the duration of the mission. Vivian picked up her suitcase and Mr. Spock was assigned to show her to her quarters.
"I believe you would prefer to have more time to get settled, Counselor," he said, walking slowly to compensate for her short legs and carrying her suitcase.
"This is the nature of Starfleet, Mr. Spock," Vivian said, adjusting her hair and holding her head up high as possible, like her uncle told her as a little girl. "Constant motion and dealing with things we wouldn't prefer." She glanced up at his greenish skin and pointed ears and said, "Mr. Spock, I don't mean to be rude..."
"You are interested in my heritage." His voice was level as it had been since she first heard him speak, nothing to suggest that he was irritated or offended in any way. "I am Vulcan."
She licked her lips, taking a bit of a risk but one she hoped would be worth it.
"I am obviously not an expert on the full roster of Starfleet," she said quickly, "but from my most recent perusal of the roster, there were no full-blooded Vulcans on any starships of this classification..."
His head jerked slightly and she was worried she'd hit a sore point. She quickly began to explain that she didn't mean any offense, but that she'd gone through a lot of old records on inter-species interactions, and that she knew that most Vulcans wanted to serve on Vulcan-crewed starships, and so she assumed... She really thought he was going to think she was a terrible person, but after a long pause he said, "Yes. I am half-human."
Forgetting all thoughts of perhaps having offended him, she focused instead on her pleasure at hearing him say those words out loud. This news was like candy for Vivian, who had never met such a strange pairing before, and certainly had never expected to meet the offspring of such a pairing. From all the records she had encountered, he was the only one of his kind.
"Forgive me," she said, feeling a little breathless. "I happen to study-"
"Interspecies relationships, yes," he said, stopping in front of a room and motioning for her to go in first. "I've read your work. I recommended you to the captain, actually."
Vivian was surprised, watching him set down the suitcase on a table. She knew people were reading her work, she'd just assumed that nearly all of her readers were on the Excalibur and people she'd known at the Academy. And her father.
"Perhaps I could...ask you some questions? If you don't mind." she said, feeling incredibly overeager. Mr. Spock didn't seem offended, just hesitant.
"I am a private man, Counselor," he said slowly. "I do understand that your work is in the interest of science and that you do not use names in your articles, but I am the only half-Vulcan I know of in Starfleet at the moment."
She nodded, understanding his reticence perfectly, but he wasn't the first private man she'd tried to work with. She promised him that she would take his privacy into account, and wouldn't publish anything without full approval from him and assurance that his privacy would be protected. She began to explain to him what simply having some record for her personal files on his experiences and psychology, but it seemed to be something he had weighed already. He eventually agreed to talk with her sometime when they both had downtime about his childhood, his philosophies, and the household of a Vulcan-human marriage. With full assurance, of course, of his privacy. And how could she argue with that?
"Take some time to get settled," he told her. "You have plenty of time to unpack before you are needed on the bridge. We are traveling at warp factor two."
Vivian thanked him and waited for him to leave before she began to unpack.
Unlike her younger sister, Eva, Vivian was devoted to light packing. She carried her research records with her, a few personal items, and a sufficient number of uniforms. As a counselor, she had a bit more liberty at the discretion of the captain to wear things outside of the standard uniform, but Vivian had always found not having to decide what to wear to be a liberating prospect, and saw no reason to muddle up her life with extra choices when she already had enough to do. That, and with responsibilities on the bridge, she felt awkward and out-of-place if she wasn't wearing a uniform on the bridge.
Since she didn't have much to unpack and organize, she took a little bit of time to sit down, catch her breath, and mentally quiz herself on the crew before reporting back to the bridge. As Mr. Spock said, she had a bit of time, and the mission wasn't urgent.
/-/
Spock reentered the bridge and took his position, checking the sensors for unusual readings.
"Was the counselor satisfied with her accommodations, Mr. Spock?" Captain Kirk asked with just a hint of amusement in her voice and a slight tugging up at the corners of her lips.
"I did not detect any dissatisfaction from her, Captain," he said, looking back down at the sensors and finding everything to be where it was meant to be. "She should be here soon enough. You may ask her yourself."
"Did she ask to interview you like you expected?"
"Naturally, Jamie," Spock said, notating the readings on his PADD. "It is the only logical thing for a person of her interests and expertise to do. Has Tormolen been informed of his assignment?"
"I had Mr. Sulu contact him while you were away," she replied, standing. "And you're going to talk to her about your life, your childhood?"
Spock had expected such questions, and even the amusement with which they were asked, but he did not find the logic in amusement over the situation. Experience had told him what to expect. He looked up at Kirk and said, "Not for publication, but for her private research, at some point. I would be a poor Chief Science Officer if I neglected to do my part for the psychological sciences."
It was a good thing that Doctor McCoy was not present on the bridge at the time. He would have done much more poorly at concealing how entertaining he found the whole scenario, and certainly would have started up an argument about how the psychological sciences were only barely to be considered sciences at all.
Starfleet had only just in the past fifty years or so begun to hold the psychological sciences to the same level and standards as things like biology, geology, and physics. Spock understood the hesitation. When dealing with emotional beings, things complied to a pattern of behavior, but hard-and-fast rules were difficult, if not impossible, to come by. It had been a "soft science" for centuries. Recent advances had managed to tie biological and neurochemical information to psychological patterns and behaviors to such a level that it had been qualified officially as a science, but many doctors remained as skeptical as Doctor McCoy on psychology's ability to accurately explain and interpret the mind, especially the human mind, and the corresponding behaviors scientifically.
The realm of psychology Counselor Buckingham dealt in was especially difficult to quantify. With most species, interpersonal relations led to the highest incidence of erratic, illogical, and unquantifiable and predictable behaviors. Romantic relationships were the most illogical of the most illogical, so the work the counselor was doing was revolutionary, looking for biochemical patterns and quantification not within like groups, but using the differences in biochemistry and neurochemistry in particular to examine what the meeting of two dissimilar groups could produce. Her results had been nothing short of spectacular, and many had suggested that she work on the project full-time, unhindered by interruptions of daily life aboard a starship. To the best of his knowledge, Spock did not expect Counselor Buckingham to make such a move. The fact that she'd taken extra time and energy to become an expert in tactical operations when she hadn't needed to for her desired career suggested that she enjoyed the daily life onboard a starship, relished it, and perhaps relied on it to structure her life and identity as many officers before her had done.
The doors opened and Vivian Buckingham reentered the bridge, a fresh uniform on and looking a bit more awake then she had when Spock had left her at her new quarters. Her hair had been straightened out as well, every piece of her blonde updo carefully pinned in place, no loose tendrils falling out around her soft brown eyes.
"Counselor Buckingham reporting for bridge duty, Captain," she said in a clear voice, and Jamara turned.
"I want you on sensors and communications while Spock is on the surface, Vivian." She paused. "Is it alright if I call you Vivian? Is there a nickname you would prefer?"
"Vivian is fine," the counselor said, looking a little taken aback by being addressed informally so quickly. "I will start on communications right away."
She moved gracefully, like a dancer, but for her shoulders, which appeared to be perpetually tense. Spock had seen this with trauma victims, and he wondered if she had undergone some trauma that was not part of her service record, which he had read thoroughly. If she had been close to her uncle, Lieutenant Commander Buckingham, who had been killed onboard a starship, perhaps news of his death had damaged her emotionally, but things occurring out of immediacy rarely left such physical markers.
Of course, it could have been dozens of things. A training accident at the academy. A personal trauma of some sort, between her and a friend or old boyfriend. Sibling rivalry, abusive parents. Any number of things that would never appear on her service records. Perhaps it would come out when they talked about his childhood, if he felt she would not be offended by his asking.
Spock was torn out of his musings by the voice of Mr. Sulu, who announced that they were ten minutes from entering orbit of Psi 2000. Counselor Buckingham donned the earpiece and sat at the seat Spock vacated in front of the sensors and comm panel. Kirk ordered Spock to meet Tormolen at the transporter room, and his mind went with his body, on to the mission at hand.