Kirk must have slept. He woke to an unfamiliar figure beside the stretcher. A leggy woman with close-cropped hair in Starfleet blue, no braid on the sleeve, medical insignia on the patch.

"Captain Kirk," she said, stepping around the bins and the stretcher with almost arachnid ease.

"You are?" Kirk asked.

"Ensign Pullman. From the Potemkin. We're evacuating you."

Kirk suppressed his disappointment at this, but it wasn't as if he was of any use to the mission flat on his back.

Two other figures in blue appeared, one an Andorian, the other a dark skinned humanoid of unclear origin sprouting small forehead horns. Pullman directed them to take up the stretcher.

Kirk had the strangest idea that the three of them could be a ruse and he was being kidnapped. The idea made him chuckle.

"All right, Captain?" Pullman waved for the stretcher to stop. They were outside between the tent and a tall cluster of brush. She bent over him to check the status lights on the life support collar.

"All good," Kirk said.

"It doesn't look like your CMO gave you any happy drugs." She frowned in confusion then seemed to shrug it off.

She waved for them to continue and minutes later Kirk was loaded into a Starfleet shuttle.

The two crewmembers took the pilot seats and Pullman latched the stretcher into the back and took up a jumpseat on the wall opposite. The three of them worked smoothly, making a few jokes and inside references. Kirk tried to ignore how well Pullman's uniform fit her lithe body. But he had a good imagination and no other decent distractions.

Pullman jerked on the stretcher and when it held firm shouted forward. "Ready in back."

"I bet you are." and "Aren't you always." Came floating back.

"Don't you wish," Pullman called forward pleasantly.

They were airborne and after some shuddering of the vessel, approached upper atmosphere. Pullman released her flight harness to lean closer. "Can I get you anything, sir?"

He wanted to request a Scotch on the rocks, just in jest, but didn't. He shook his head. But uncomfortable silent minutes later he opted for being personable.

"How long have you been on the Potemkin, Ensign?"

This brought her to stillness. "Are you trying to poach me, Captain?"

"No. Just making conversation." He resisted laughing because it could seem depreciating.

"Seven months, sir."

"I know this is going to sound even more like I'm trying to poach you, but how is it on the Potemkin?"

"I like it, sir."

"Lots of shipmates you identify with?"

"Not these two." She said, but was grinning as she said it. "But others, yes sir."

Kirk stared at the ceiling of the shuttle. "Captain Okudo must be better at cultivating female talent. I don't think I have any female crew quite as . . . energetic as you."

She made a small sound that Kirk couldn't put a meaning on and sat back in the jumpseat. After a minute, she said, "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Kirk grew acutely aware of his strapped down state and the weight of the collar keeping him alive. "By all means, Ensign. I am at your mercy."

There was a long pause. "You have quite a reputation, sir. I suspect that has something to do with it."

Kirk didn't answer right away, but he couldn't think of anything more than, "Do I?"

"Yes indeedee, Captain." She sat back, one foot up on the stretcher to help brace it against vibration, head tilted inquisitively. Kirk couldn't imagine any of his female crew coming anywhere near this level of comfortableness, in his presence or otherwise.

She went on, "And you're a legend, sir."

"I don't know why."

"You're the youngest Captain in the history of Starfleet." Her voice had gone factual. He couldn't decide if that meant she was proceeding carefully or just wanted to make a point.

"I am, but that's not . . ."

"You were given the Galaxial Barrier mission. You fought off your first officer who had become a god and destroyed an entire automated base with just his mind."

That blunt summary took Kirk a moment to process.

"Everyone has been following your mission. Is that an unfair summary of events, Captain?"

"No." His voice didn't come out very strong. He sounded far away. And he was, but not in the past, he was hovering somewhere beyond the hull of the shuttle wondering how different he could seem from the outside as from the in. That gap had grown much larger since he'd been made captain, and it made him uneasy. How could he lead if he was so far removed?

"I apologize, sir. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No. Don't. It's not that. I was thinking about something else." Kirk tried to rub his hair back, but his hand was tied down. He forced himself to lay still or he'd have to ask to be unstrapped and that his ego refused to allow.

"You're not out of line, Ensign," he said with friendly ease. He wanted to ask the ETA to the ship, but that would belie what he'd just said. He thought over their conversation. He truly did want to understand what he was doing wrong, leadership-wise, with the women in his crew.

Kirk said, "What you said about reputation. I wouldn't think of sleeping with my crew, so I don't suppose it occurred to me that my reputation could be an issue."

Her face became thoughtful. Now she did speak carefully. "You wouldn't sleep with your crew, sir?"

"By no means. I will admit there are grey areas in command, and things I could do better, but that is an absolute grade A-1 error. It is all downside. Personalities cause enough trouble if they aren't set on the same goal. I cannot imagine the fallout from romantic entanglements at the top of the command chain."

"Oh."

Kirk gingerly turned his head to better look at her. She seemed to be processing this as new information rather than doubting his veracity. He wanted to say, did you really think I would? But decided it didn't matter. What did matter is that others on the ship probably thought the same, and that needed to be addressed.

The collar beeped. She fetched out and opened a medipack and replaced the vials on the collar with full ones. She was bent over him, concentrating on the task, but said chummily in the voice every medic uses to keep their charge awake and alive, "How are you doing, Captain?"

"I'll admit, I've felt better."

"Well, without a few of these, I guarantee you'd be feeling a lot worse."

The collar, his entire body felt as if they were in a G force simulator. He could inventory his aches, but didn't want to. He tried to think of something else to say to avoid thinking about his body. But thinking wasn't easy and his body was insistent.

She was sitting back again and braced her foot on the stretcher. The vibration became tolerable.

Even her well-fitted uniform wasn't a very good distraction anymore.

She said, "I suspect rest is the best thing for you, sir."

His eyes had been trying to close but his ego chaffed at sleeping in front of her. He nodded in agreement because he couldn't lie, but didn't want to give in. The burst of medication was making him not care about anything.