Chapter Two: Frenemies
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from writing about these characters.
Natalie intends to speak to Spock the next day, but a critical manifold shipped to the wrong yard has to be tracked down and redirected before anything else can happen in engineering. The work stoppage puts Chief Engineer Greg Olson in a more cantankerous mood than usual, and Natalie eventually snaps at him—surprising him, because she is almost always even-tempered.
"Sorry, Olson," she says, getting him to sign the revised shipping orders later that afternoon. "I didn't mean to bite your head off. Things are dicey right now."
She can see him eyeing her carefully—though he might simply be wary about evoking her ire again.
"No, it's me that should apologize " he says. "I know this is hard for you."
The engineering room is hot, the oily vapors sticking her uniform to her skin. Natalie does not want to stand around engaging in mindless chit-chat with Olson—though isn't that the same attitude that got Spock in hot water yesterday? —but she senses that she needs to.
"No harder than any other launch, I guess," she says, tucking the PADD under her arm.
"Not the launch," Olson says, looking around as if he is afraid of being overheard. Natalie follows his gaze and sees no one close enough to hear their conversation over the construction noise.
"What are you talking about?" she says cautiously. If Olson is aware of some scuttlebutt she needs to know….
"We were counting on you as first officer," Olson says, "and I don't blame you for being hopping mad—"
"Wait a minute!" Natalie protests. "I'm not mad. What makes you think I'm mad?"
"I would be," Olson says, "if the captain jumped some green cadet over me—"
Natalie blows out her breath loudly.
"Wait a second. You've got this all wrong. The captain didn't jump anyone over me—I'm resigning my commission."
Olson nods and gives what Natalie assumes is supposed to be a sympathetic look. It makes her furious.
"I always planned to leave! No one's making me. I have other things to do with my life besides fly around with Starfleet."
Olson gives her the same nod and Natalie feels a rush of annoyance. Is he deaf?
"Whatever you say, Commander," Olson says.
"Listen to me," Natalie says, squaring her shoulders and stepping closer. "Captain Pike and I both think that Commander Spock is the right choice for first officer. He's not some green cadet. He's been teaching at the Academy for several years."
Olson steps back fractionally and Natalie follows him.
"If he hadn't been with us in Leiden, we might have been killed."
"Okay, okay!" Olson says, putting his palms up. "You made your point."
Natalie huffs and pulls the PADD from under her arm. She starts to turn and hears Olson saying, "But he's an odd duck—you have to admit that."
Later Natalie will wonder why she reacts so strongly—it certainly doesn't help Spock win any friends—but she's tired of having to defend him, first to Pike, and now to this blustering engineer. At Olson's muttering, she swings back around and pokes her index finger to his chest.
"Listen, Mister," she says softly, "I'm still part of this team until the launch—and while I am, you will show respect to every crew member, including Commander Spock. Do you understand me?"
Something intangible shifts in Olson's expression—his eyes narrow slightly, his cheeks go ruddy—and Natalie already regrets her heavy-handedness with him. Now she has an enemy she didn't have before, and Spock….well, she doesn't want to think about what she may have done for—or to—him.
X X X X X X X X
None of the students in the lecture hall has any sense that Spock is disturbed. The pitch of his voice is as it always is—quiet and knowledgeable and, to the uncharitable few not really interested in the subject matter, steady to the point of monotony.
But even as he talks about the ethical treatment of artificial intelligence and the newest legal thinking about the rights and privileges of non-organic beings, part of his mind is occupied with replaying the staff meeting from the day before.
The other officers were already present and had fallen silent when he arrived.
The odds are 67% that he was the topic of conversation: they were waiting to begin the meeting when he arrived, he was unfamiliar to them, and he heard someone say his name right before he opened the door. Their curiosity—and the likelihood they were discussing the source of their curiosity—is logical.
Still, their sudden silence made him uncomfortable.
Captain Pike was sitting at the head of the conference table, his attaché to his left, his officers arranged around him with the seat to Pike's right left empty. Spock walked to the empty chair quickly, and someone—Olson, perhaps—quipped, "Glad you could join us." At the time Spock assumed this was an expression of genuine pleasure—but now he thinks that the speaker may have been using sarcasm.
It is very confusing.
Captain Pike introduced everyone. Steven Puri, the chief medical officer, a middle-aged human with light brown eyes and dark hair, extended his hand when Pike spoke his name. Spock looked at the doctor's hand for a moment, steeling himself to shake it, when the doctor shook himself with a little laugh and pulled back.
"Oh, sorry," he said. 'Where are my manners?"
Spock recognized Dr. Puri's question as a rhetorical one and said nothing—though he felt a ripple around the room and he had the sense that the others were surprised by his silence.
Olson, the chief engineer, didn't speak but nodded when Pike introduced him. Not someone who enjoyed unnecessary chatter, then. Spock gave him what he hoped was a grateful expression.
The other department heads were almost as quiet, though the operations manager and the shuttle flight deck director made some sort of humorous comment about needing to stay on Spock's good side, whatever that meant.
As baffling as that had been, however, the meeting was not problematic until Captain Pike turned to him and said, "Mr. Spock, would you like to tell us something about yourself?" and he answered truthfully, "No, sir, I would not."
Pike's face blanched but the officers all laughed. Pike looked around at them and then he, too, laughed, though Spock told Nyota later that the captain's laughter lacked the boisterousness of the officers.
"It wasn't real," she said, and he objected.
"He did laugh," Spock said, "but it was of a different quality and lagging in tempo from the others."
"I mean," she amended, "that he wasn't really laughing—wait, don't say anything—I mean, his laughter wasn't motivated from a feeling of amusement. He was…pretending….to join in the levity. To save face. Or to make light of what you had done."
"I had done nothing except tell the truth," Spock objected mildly, and Nyota shook her head.
Now as he finishes his lecture and opens the floor to questions, Spock sets aside his ruminations about the staff meeting and thinks instead about this evening and his required presence at a ceremonial function.
The pre-launch countdown has been underway for quite some time, but tonight Admiral Barnett is hosting what is being billed as a "ribbon cutting ceremony"—an odd term that does not describe what Spock knows will happen there. No one will cut any ribbons. Instead, he and the other Enterprise officers will be expected to talk to the press corps about their pre-launch responsibilities.
The evening promises to be another event of questionable interest or value.
Refraining from sighing, Spock focuses on a surprisingly insightful question from a third year student who has never, until now, appeared to show much interest in the coursework. That she is motivated to seek a greater understanding of the topic is quite gratifying.
The disappointments of the last two days ebb away as he parses the student's question and offers her suggestions for more research—suggestions that she seems to take seriously.
Spock cannot help but contrast the pleasure he feels now with the discomfort earlier with the Enterprise officers. Perhaps giving up the Academy is a mistake.
He resolves to set that thought aside until later. Right now he has to finish class, and then he has one hour and thirty-four minutes until the ceremony.
Travel time will consume twenty-seven minutes, including the walk from the lecture hall to his apartment and the hover bus to the far side of the campus where Admiral Barnett is hosting the event.
He will need to shower and dress—and possibly find time to eat. That leaves just enough time to meditate before the certain strains of meeting and talking to unfamiliar people.
He ends the class exactly on time, following the students filing out.
And then he does something that astonishes him later when he reflects on it.
Pulling his comm from his pocket, he calls Nyota and asks her to meet him at his apartment.
"Are you sure?" Her voice is tiny and unsatisfying through the speaker in his ear.
He considers her question carefully. If she comes to his apartment, he will not have time to meditate. Does he need to? Absolutely. Does he need her presence more?
"I am sure," he says.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! They keep me working! Seriously—the more reviews fanfiction writers get, the faster they write!
Thanks, too, to StarTrekFanWriter, for her helpful comments. Check out her stories in my faves—including her newest one, "Tapestry."
