The Logical Connection
(An unexpected encounter changes both of their lives, forever.)
Sarek, Spock's father, had much influence on Spock and the Vulcan Council. So after years of debates on his behalf and the worried looks from his mother, Amanda Grayson, Spock had accepted a position in the Vulcan Science Academy. The Council made it evident that he, the Vulcan they considered off the rails, was under academic probation.
Since he was already excelling at Earth's Starfleet Academy, rising to the rank of Commander, his required attendance mandated that his Vulcan studies, much to the Council's relief, were to be done remotely.
But his original refusal to the Vulcan Academy, already had its consequence. T'pring, a Vulcan female, with the urging of her family, severed their prearranged marriage bond made when they were merely children. This was a crushing blow to him and his standings on Vulcan. Luck would have it, without being under the effects of the Pon Far, he was released from its to-the-death challenge.
He was now a Vulcan whose time was still adversely numbered. In his brain, he had often tried to compute down to the probable moment that he would be compromised by the resulting blood fever of the Plak Tow but the human part of his nature had always prevented him from making those minute calculations.
He had considered all his options. He could complete the process to remove from him, all emotions thus nullifying the effects of the Pon Far. But there were the possible complications. Though it will render his brain to pure logic, at only 45.165 percent chance of success, he might become something neither Vulcan nor Human as a result. Could he give up all that his mother meant to him?
One seed of hope remained. A woman. A human woman. A woman who he regarded with respect and with the deepest affection that he could manage in the strict bounds of Vulcan courtship. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura.
There where the obvious difficulties.
Being that he is a product of a human female, human women were not an improbable choice, but he had no knowledge of or experience in the aspect of attracting a female of this type without maybe causing offense. Or causing offense on his planet of origin.
She was his student, a junior officer and occasional assistant. A cadet at Starfleet. And a very promising one, academically placing at the top in his Advanced Phonology class. Her knowledge of Vulcan speech and her intellect would have made her an obvious choice.
But according to Starfleet, fraternization between instructor and student was not allowed. Infractions meant court martial for him and dismissal for her.
Putting his logic aside, it was not a disagreeable sensation to him when she would playfully tease him to distraction causing his shell to crack even momentarily. Their social discourse would be replayed over and over in his head when he would spend the quiet hours, in his quarters, spilling over programming codes on his PADD.
He had even caught himself entranced when he had listened to the melodic tones of her voice when she inadvertently hummed a song while she was in the Sound Lab, alone, late one evening.
When she had seen him approach, she stopped her humming, removed the earpiece and scrambled to her feet. She looked tired but that did not take anything away from her beauty.
"Oh, I am sorry, Commander. I did not mean to cause you any disturbance."
"No, it is I who should apologize for the interruption, Lieutenant. The beauty of the sound is reminiscent of what I would hear on Vulcan." He could not tell her though, as similarly sung by Vulcan women as part of the mating ritual, with Vulcan men responding in kind on the lyre. "All that is missing is for me to accompany your aria with the sound of the strings that emanate from my Vulcan lyre."
Noting the look of embarrassment on her face but a faint hint of something else, he tried to read her face further. She then smiled.
"A keen ear for music. You never fail to surprise me, Mr. Spock." She moved around him to give her words more emphasis, looking him up and down. "It makes me wonder if music to you can be for both the pleasure of purpose and the purpose of pleasure."
He had to admit to defeat, being check-mated as in Tri-dimensional chess, leaving the King defenseless to the Queen.
"It would be logical for me to be tied to one and restrained in the other. Pleasure, in any case, would still be the objective. The giving as well as the getting." He regained his placidness "I have not ascertain why you are here at this time?"
"I was working on a sound recording of a song possibly from Earth's history around the 1860's for my minor in Audio Archaeology. I was humming to try to identify the passage. I guess I had gotten loss in my work and lost all track of the time."
"Your dedication does you credit."
Lieutenant Uhura, I would be remiss, if I do not arrange some sort of escort home for you at this late hour. If none is available then I will gladly employ myself to the task.
He saw no hesitance from her to his suggestion. Her tired eyes brightened.
After a couple of failed attempts to get assistance, Spock kept to his word and joined Uhura on the journey to her quarters on the opposite side of campus.
During the unguarded moments of their walk, they talked of things about their upbringing, ambitions and activities that occupied their rare free time.
Once at Uhura's door, she turned to him, looking more relaxed than he had ever seen her. "Commander Spock would you like to come in for a few moments before you leave?"
"Miss Uhura, I think that would be unwise. But I do not see any loss of propriety for you to only address me as Spock in this informal setting." Before he could respond further, a bit of disturbance from her quarters cause his posture to go on alert. "Should I investigate for any signs of danger?"
She threw her head back, rolled her eyes and gave out a sigh. He struggled to figure out the expression. "No need. It's just my roommate. She must have some guy over," she said, distinctively sounding exasperated.
Spock raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment. "Good night, Miss Uhura."
"Ahhh, Spock?
Yes, Miss Uhura?"
"Nyota." "You can call me Nyota."
"I would be honored, Nyota. May your rest be a peaceful one."
"And yours not to be fleeting. Good night, Spock."
In the following weeks, Spock had kept himself engaged in his academic duties, gauging the progress of his students, one in particular. When she raised her hand in class, he tried to hold back from showing his favoritism but it grew difficult for him not to shower her with praise.
"Commander, how can we ever reach the level of measurable fluency with any language? Isn't language, when in use, always changing?"
He focused his full gaze on the comely cadet. She seemed to blush under the tones of her brown skin.
"Indeed, Lieutenant you have anticipated the direction of this course. Language differs from that of an interstellar space trader than that of a speaker who converses daily in large social group collectives like something similar to that of a web. We must locate patterns and anticipate the possible changes through syntactic analysis.
"Though colorful, language has its limitation to the organ from which it is spoken. A more effective means of communication is to bypassed it altogether through the use of telepathy."
Thank you, Commander," she said as she went to sit back down.
Spock was not finished with the direction of his reasoning.
"Lieutenant, I understand that you have reached a high level of proficiency with my native tongue, Vulcan. Have you not?"
"Affirmative, Commander. Mostly the dialects of High Vulcan."
"With your permission, will you allow me to conduct a demonstration? Judge for yourself and your fellow cadets the vast differences between what is learned as second language and that of a native speaker. I will subject you to the Vulcan mind meld. You can then relay your speculations. Do I have your consent?"
"Ahhh, I don't know. I have a slight understanding of the Vulcan ways of mind melding. And I am curious to know more. Okay." She made her way to down to the bottom of the stairs and stood in from of him.
He moved in close to her, catching her scent. Their eyes met for an instant before she looked away furtively. He placed his fingers strategically on her forehead and cheek so that she could get a better reading.
His mind blended easily with hers. He explored the vastness of her mind catching a string of thought here and there until he opened up a line of communication. Words in Vulcan streamed between them. Her words, more broken than his and infused with emotion unheard of for the language, revealed feelings had he had long hope for.
He tried to keep a hold of the thread but something in his mind slipped. Before he could stop it, a wave of emotional transference, compatible to the force and size of a tsunami swelled the cadet's mind.
He called out to her in their thoughts. "Nyota!!!"
Uhura grabbed at her head, in pain, shrieked and crumbled to the floor, unconscious.
The room full of cadets were silenced and looked in horror. Some in the front ran forward. Spock drew up his hand to stop their advance. With was much authority in his voice he could muster, he called out, "Class dismissed!" Spock lifted the limp, small frame of the Lieutenant and rushed her out of the lecture hall.
He waited until Uhura regained consciousness in one of the many Starfleet's sickbays.
"Spock?" Umm, Commander, I don't understand." She sounded groggy. "What was that?"
Spock kept his appearance of composure though he felt unusually rattled.
"Lieutenant, that was the effect of emotional transference. I hope that I have not damaged you in any way. You will soon return to normal."
"How can I return to normal. You nearly fried my brain,"
He was puzzled by what he assumed was some sort of colloquial expression.
"I regret doing you harm in class. The intention not there to cause you pain. Please accept my apology. I would not blame you if you put me on report."
"Spock, " She spoke and paused for an instant. "I think you know that I would never do that."
Official records were made of the incident of that day in class, shocked cadets drifted back into his class and soon things quieted down. Neither his career nor her career were adversely affected to his relief. Physically, he took great pains to keep his distance from her but he knew that even great distance of space could not separate him from the woman he was now emotionally mated to. His Nyota. Only time would tell when she would be able to fully assimilate his feelings from the mind meld.
She was there, sharing his emotions in his time of sorrows. Many had died. Millions of Vulcans left a void. His home was gone. His mother was gone. All of them silenced into the black hole that darkened the area that was once illuminated by his planet. It had also, not escaped his attention, that when the Enterprise emerged from warp speed, they narrowly avoided collision with the wreckage of the Faragut, Nyota's original assigned ship. He could not dwell on that. It would be highly illogical for him as a Vulcan to gravitate over what might have happen. Only what has. Nyota was still here and that was all that was necessary.
Spock's mind had been conflicted. He thought that his primary objective was to help rebuild a new planet Vulcan with the surviving refugees. He would have to leave Nyota. His decision was made after meeting his older self on the landing bay after mistaking him for his father.
"Do what you feel is right," the older Spock advised.
And after Spock Prime deviated from his original parting salutation from "Live long and prosper" with "Good luck", he spoke again with a voice that cracked with sadness.
"Say goodbye to our wife for me. You are fortunate that unlike me, time and distance will not separate you from the one you now hold dearest in your heart."