I was so excited to finally be able to post that I forgot the flippen disclaimer, whooo.... I own nothing, and this is my first Star Trek fanfiction. I loved it for ages, and finally decided to write something. I've got something else coming up too, completely different, completely dangerous, and way too dark. Enjoy the levity while it lasts.
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Jim couldn't believe his luck. He was captain of the Starship Enterprise, the flagship of the 'fleet, and here he was on transportation duty for a bunch of Vulcans. There was nothing wrong with Vulcans, his own First Officer was half Vulcan and he was AWESOME. Best First Officer ever. Just like he was the best Captain, ever. He sighed, and ran a hand through his golden curled hair with complete frustration as he waited in the transporter room to greet the new arrivals. McCoy was next to him and having a similar reaction.
He and Spock were…friends, but antagonistic to a fault. McCoy didn't agree with his emotionless nature, calling it unhealthy and insane, and more importantly, calling him a green blooded hobgoblin. The Doctor was grumbling, and finally snapped, "damn it Jim. I can barely stand ONE of the hobgoblins, let alone an entire troop of them. Don't get me wrong, I have no trouble transporting them to the new colony, heaven knows they've been through enough, but do they HAVE to be so damn LOGICAL?!"
"They're Vulcan." Jim said with a shrug, and then looked to the transporter as beams of light steadily solidified into a group of the aliens in question. Spock was confined to sickbay having performed yet another logical, yet foolhardy stunt in order to save Jim's life. It was one of the reasons they were stuck with the job. The first thing they noticed was the adults, tall, regal, and intimidating as hell. Then their eyes trailed steadily down to just around waist level, and they noticed the children. Un-emotive, tiny, adorable as all hell children. Or, they would be if they didn't have the blankest of composed expressions on their faces. That was freaky. They stepped off the transporter pad as one, also freaky, and Jim motioned to an Ensign to take them to a briefing room where they could address them when they were all together. This happened five times more, with a total of nearly one hundred Vulcans, twenty two of them children.
They met in the briefing room and after explaining the situation, detailing certain rules to follow, and a brief estimate of how many days to their destination. They were then sent to their quarters, minus a few who were all asked to accompany the doctor for a rudimentary check up.
In the sickbay Spock was lying still under white sheets and breathing steadily, but weakly, and a few of the Vulcan children were slightly hesitant. That gave McCoy an idea. A wonderful idea. What better way… He stopped his musings and returned to attempting to decipher their readings, grumbling quietly under his breath as he went.
When they were finished another group was sent in and so on. McCoy sighed, pronounced them all in good (questionable) health, and released the last group to their quarters, and immediately went to contact Jim.
The Captain entered sickbay when his shift was over, slight hesitation in his step and eyes on the lookout for any hyposprays. McCoy rolled his eyes at his friend, and dragged him into his office. This immediately wiped any worries away. Jim smiled as the doctor poured a glass of brandy for each of them and they gave a small silent toast before going to drink it. The silence that prevailed for a couple minutes was comfortable, until the Doctor leaned back in his chair and rolled his half empty glass around in his fingers. "You know, I think I found a way to prove my point to the hobgoblin." Jim sighed, and bit his lip.
"Before you get into it, do you mind telling me how the hobgoblin is?"
"Spock's stable. He's as good as expected given how much he was ripped apart." He sighed uncomfortably, and rubbed at his neck. "But that's not why I got you here. I need your help."
"What are you planning Bones?"
McCoy smiled slightly, and began to detail his plan to the captain. When he was done, Jim had an equally mischievous smile, and he agreed. Thus, stage one was put into action.
The day that followed involved a slightly creeped out Jim giving a tour to a bunch of bland faced, but very intrigued, children. They especially liked the engine room, and Scotty was beyond happy to discuss them with the very attentive audience he was given. Jim was leaning against the wall in boredom, but slightly amused by the questions that were asked and the answers given.
After a few moments the tour continued to the surprisingly empty rec-room. Jim leaned against the wall in amusement, watching how they all fanned out and examined everything, curiosity not one of the emotions that they were taught to repress. After a moment when he was given the signal his body language and expression turned to one of fear. The children all noticed the change, and looked over to him curiously.
One of them walked over to him and spoke, "If my lessons regarding human emotions are correct, I would estimate you are fearful of something."
Jim blinked at the word choice, but didn't let anything else show. "It's not that important…" He dismissed initially, but each of the Vulcans were now staring at him, and the combination of tiny pointed ears and wide black eyes were too much for even someone who hadn't been planning to answer. "It's just; this was the room where our original doctor killed himself."
"Suicide is illogical." One of them said simply.
"Humans aren't known to be logical." Jim answered simply. They seemed to accept that, but stared at him in silent prompting, when nothing else was forthcoming another spoke up,
"Is the room contaminated by something that would lead to suicide for other humans?"
Jim blinked at the conclusion, "No, no…not suicide."
"Then what?"
"It's just; this room isn't used very much any more. They say it's haunted."
"Hauntings are illogical."
Jim looked around as though the ghost could hear him. His fear was slowly beginning to infect some of the younger children. "Well, I don't know…you have katra's right?"
They nodded.
"You've heard that humans have souls…"
"It has not been proven."
"There is lots of evidence that points to us having one. And we're positive that when we die under painful or terrible circumstances, such as suicide, that some imprint remains. The Doctor's ghost has been seen. It has also tried to hurt people. He doesn't understand that he's dead, and he's afraid. He's even hurt our doctor now."
"Doctor McCoy?" One of the children asked. The younger Vulcans had 'liked' the doctor, and the thought of him being hurt by anything was not something they wanted to hear.
"Yes. Doctor McCoy. He had his leg broken." Which wasn't untrue, his leg was broken in the rec-room, falling over a random game in the middle of the floor. He had cursed a blue streak, terrorized everyone, and the games had been put away perfectly ever since.
The children were growing steadily uneasy. It was almost time, just one more push. "The ghost is said to have a rope still around his neck leftover from when he hung himself. And when he comes, you can hear him sobbing. His wife and child died in an accident, and prompted him to give up and kill himself." Also not totally untrue, they as good as died. The young vulcans were quiet, eyes wide, looking around in uneasy worry. They all snapped to look up at the ceiling when the sound of someone sobbing met their highly sensitive, highly pointed ears.
Jim watched as they all huddled together, eyes fixed, wide with terror and mouths slowly moving to hang open as their forms began to tremble. When the sobbing got louder and more intense, each of their eyes widened and they pressed even tighter together. Finally McCoy covered in replicated flower, and dressed in an old doctors uniform, complete with bloodstains, a bag over his head accompanied and a noose around his neck, fell down from a hatch in the ceiling to the sound of screams from the children.
Unfortunately, Vulcans, like anyone, do not like to be scared. Their screams of fright turned to screams of rage, and next second they had converged on the disguised doctor in a flurry of little fists and vulcan cursing. Jim had his hands pressed over his mouth, and his eyes wide as they beat on his doctor who was waving his arms over his head and pleading with them to stop. To his grave Jim would swear that he immediately jumped in to rescue him, but in actuality, he first fell to the floor in gut busting laughter at the sight of his CMO being pummeled by a bunch of supposedly un-emotive vulcan children.
Finally he was able to pull them away, reveal Bones, explain the situation as a human tradition, and with looks of great confusion, fear, and concern from the vulcan children, and looks of great pain, and contrite from the CMO they left, and Jim took to carrying Bones to the sickbay. It seemed he had a couple of them broken, as well as a few nasty bruises and lacerations.
Spock woke up the sight of the doctor being tended to with a nasty looking black eye, a split lip, and a broken nose among other things. He blinked, and immediately went to sit up with a look of concern on his face, McCoy ignored him. Until he seemed to hurt himself, and Bones pushed him back down gently.
"Doctor, what happened to give you such injuries?" He inquired, ignoring the pain that shot from his side up.
Jim paused and leaned down next to him conspiratonially. "Vulcans don't like to be emotionally compromised." With these words and a finger to his nose, the captain welcomed his first officer back, and his CMO learned a valuable lesson.
Never, EVER scare a Vulcan.