Author's Note: I don't own Star Trek. Please review everyone! Do you all like this story? Pretty please let me know! Because I have a few more ideas on the chopping block…
Ch. 3 - All About Profit
Quintan was not having a good day. First a group of crewmen had refused to stop and buy his wares. Then that female Ensign had managed to contact her ship. Then his brother had left without him! And NOW he was locked in the brig of the human vessel. Quintan glared at the walls of his cell and jumped about a foot in the air when the doors of the brig opened and the human Captain walked in, followed by that Vulcan.
"Ah, Captain," Quintan began, "I..."
"Save it," Kirk snapped. "You told Commander Spock that you didn't know where that ship was going, correct?"
"I swear that it was the truth," the Ferengi said. "But in exchange for a few bars of gold-plated platinum I may remember something interesting."
"You would trade your partner's whereabouts for money?" Spock asked. "Fascinating, you are as greedy as the database describes."
"We don't have any money," Kirk said.
"Then I have no information..."
"But you will tell us what we want to know or…or…or my first officer will mind-meld with you," Kirk said. Spock glanced at Kirk, one eyebrow slightly raised in his version of extreme surprise, but Kirk ignored him and the Ferengi didn't notice.
"Mind...mind-meld?" Quintan stammered.
"A Vulcan technique where our minds will be joined and I will know everything you know," Spock replied.
"Ah...does it hurt...?" Quintan whimpered. Like all Ferengi he was, at heart, a coward.
"Extremely," said the human Captain.
"I don't know where they took your man, I just know that they paid us to give them a senior officer onboard a Starfleet vessel. Extra if it was from the Enterprise," Quintan rambled off quickly.
"Who's they?" said the Captain.
"And where do you think they may be going?" asked Spock.
"I don't know for sure, my brother has the lobes for this type of business but..."
"Answer the question!" Kirk snapped. He looked truly frightening to the Ferengi.
"Klingons!" Quintan said, "And they may be going to their home world..."
"You sold my officer to the Klingons?!" Kirk shouted.
"It was a good price!" Quintan wailed, "But they didn't pay me for this!"
"Don't bother, Captain," said Spock. Kirk had never seen Spock look so cold as when he looked at the miserable Ferengi. "The Ferengi would sell their own souls for a profit. An alien youth means nothing to them."
"Can I charge him with anything?" Kirk growled at Spock as the two of them walked to the turbo lift.
"By the laws of their species he has done no wrong."
"What about the laws of the Federation! They are part of the Federation, right?"
"Not entirely..."
As the two men entered the turbo lift, Kirk let Spock's voice wash over him. The Vulcan was explaining exactly how to proceed in bringing the Ferengi to justice, something about revoking his license to trade in Federation space. But most of Kirk's mind was occupied by the idea of Chekov - the youngest person on his ship - being tortured by Klingons.
"You are not listening, are you, Captain?" Spock asked.
"Huh? No, not really...it's just..."
"You are worried about Ensign Chekov."
"Yeah," Kirk looked at Spock and admitted. "Out of all the people who could be kidnapped onboard this ship, they picked the person who'd I worry about the most. It's not that I don't think the kid can take care of himself, it's just..."
"You feel even more responsible for him because he is younger," Spock finished. "The fact that you just called him a kid proves that fact."
Kirk didn't respond, only looked at the lights of the turbo lift flash as they went to the bridge.
"I, too, am anxious about Ensign Chekov," Spock admitted after a moment.
Kirk looked at him in surprise. "You? Worried about someone else?"
Spock gave him a look; a look that somehow managed to convey that discussion between the two of them and Uhura on the way to Kronos during the Khan incident. A look that held the shadow of his rage-filled race after Khan through San Francisco when he thought Kirk was gone forever.
"I know," Kirk said softy, "I'm sorry."
"There is no need to apologize, Jim," Spock answered just as softy, "You and Uhura are perhaps the only people in the world who know I am capable of so much emotion..."
"Not the only ones," Kirk whispered. Scotty and Chekov had seen Spock race to the bridge, heard him scream in denial when Jim Kirk had died.
"The fact remains," Spock concluded, "That I do care about a select few and, somehow, that young man has managed to become one of them."
